4. Statement by the Minister for Welsh Language and Lifelong Learning: Progress Report on the Employability Plan

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:09 pm on 18 September 2018.

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Photo of Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan Labour 4:09, 18 September 2018

Diolch yn fawr, Mohammad. Yes, I think this development that we've put on the table, £10 million, really has made the further education system sit up and take notice and understand that we are dead serious about the need for them to respond to the skills needs of the local economy. What has happened as a consequence of that is that, actually, people are getting much more engaged with the regional skills partnership, because they understand that, if they want to access that money, they can only access it if they're responding to what those RSPs are saying. The issue we have now is to make sure that we are getting the right labour market intelligence into those regional skills partnerships—so, getting the right people around the table. And, whilst we can have big companies, I think it's really important that we also focus on SMEs and making sure that we hear what they've got to tell us about their skills needs. Now, we can do that partly, perhaps, through sector skills; we can read the labour market intelligence and make sure that's being built in. So, we have gone a long way and, of course, it will be relevant in the review that we're doing in relation to further education, because we need to be training people for jobs that exist, or will exist, rather than providing people with training for jobs that simply don't exist. So, that is an interesting shift that I think—. I'm really pleased to say that further education colleges are responding very positively.

I think the other issue that you touched upon is apprenticeships. Now, I think we've got a very proud record on apprenticeships in Wales. We're on target to meet our 100,000 apprenticeships, and, of course, what you have to remember is that these are all-age apprenticeships, so only about 25 per cent of them are for people under the age of 25.

In-work poverty is probably one of the biggest challenges we face in Wales today, and so the issue is how do you get people to take on better roles within their jobs and therefore earn more money. And the answer is training. Now, we can go some way to helping to provide that training, but part of what we have to do is to make sure that employers also take up their responsibility, and that's something that we've made very clear, and I make very clear, every time I meet the employers that I meet with.