Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:40 pm on 6 July 2021.
Well, this is really a point about how we continue to invest in the workforce. And this is an area where the job that you'd have done in the steel industry 20 years ago isn't necessarily the job that you're doing today and won't be the job that you do in 20 years' time, and employers recognise that themselves. And, again, it's recognised not just by employers but by the trade union side as well—to constantly need to look again at how the job is done and the skills that people need. And that's why I think there is optimism about the fact that those companies want to invest not just in their current workforce but in their future one. So, it's partly about the skills you need to enter that workforce, to become an apprentice, to get taken on, but actually then what will you need to carry on doing.
So, I think we're dealing with employers that recognise they've got responsibilities to be able to invest, and it's why I make the point about how European successor funding is used. If we can't use that in a way that allows us to have proper strategic investment in skills in different sectors of the economy, we could end up spending money poorly and not actually advantaging those businesses and workers to have the sort of future that we would all, from today's statement, want them to have. So, there are real choices to be made that aren't simply about the Welsh Government and the UK Government disagreeing—there is a real, practical impact in the choices that we make about skills investment.