Asked by
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what consideration they have
given to introducing a national green skills strategy to ensure
that the workforce has the necessary skills to meet the United
Kingdom’s net zero emissions commitments.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy () (Con)
My Lords, the Net Zero Strategy sets out our plans to work with
industry to create the skilled workforce needed to deliver our
net-zero targets. This includes green apprenticeships and
retraining boot camps. The Government are establishing a green
jobs delivery group, co-chaired by a government Minister and an
industry representative, where government, industry and other key
stakeholders will work together to deliver the skills needed for
net zero.
(CB)
My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register and
thank the Minister for that Answer. Green skills will be
fundamental to economic growth and the levelling-up agenda, as
well as to achieving net zero. While I recognise that much is
going on in various parts of the forest, will the Government now
bring together all the various agencies and departments with
business and industry to provide a comprehensive and systematic
strategy for skills? I also take the opportunity of the Minister
being at the Dispatch Box to ask whether, given the reports in
today’s papers about onshore wind, the Government will now give
my Private Member’s Bill on the issue fair passage.
(Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for her question. Before I answer, I
will detain the House for a moment to acknowledge that, after 52
years of distinguished service in Parliament, this is the final
appearance of my noble friend , who is joined by his family in
the Public Gallery. I am sure I speak for the whole House in
saying that we have been greatly enhanced by his presence here
and wish him the very best for his long and happy retirement. We
on these Benches will miss him.
Going back to the question of the noble Baroness, she makes a
very good point. We are bringing together the Green Jobs
Taskforce, chaired by my right honourable friend Minister Hands,
with representatives from the DfE, the DWP and all the key
departments in Whitehall. With regard to her Private Member’s
Bill, we have an energy Bill coming up which will deal with many
of these matters.
(Con)
My Lords, is my noble friend aware of the great amount of
consideration that should be given to the horticultural sector,
which can offer so much? It has a shortage and is crying out for
skilled jobs. What can my noble friend do to assist?
(Con)
My noble friend makes a very good point. There are a number of
different apprenticeship standards supporting green skills. The
horticultural sector is very much a green skill, so I totally
agree with her that we want to do all we can to encourage this
important sector.
My Lords, I join the Minister in paying tribute to the noble
Lord, , for his long and distinguished
service to this House and the other place.
Could the Minister set out for the House the specific skills that
the workforce needs to develop and obtain to meet the UK’s net
zero commitments?
(Con)
That is a very wide-ranging question. There are a number of them,
but I can give some examples: the wave 1 and 2 skills bootcamps
in green subjects, such as housing retrofit, solar and nuclear
energy, vehicle electrification. We have 40-plus apprenticeship
standards in digital, STEM, nuclear, forestry, manufacturing et
cetera—there are a number of them.
(Con)
My Lords, the International Energy Agency confirms that global
emissions are again rising fast. Sadly, it looks as though even
if we achieve the UK net zero aim, which is commendable and
something that we all want to see, those emissions will continue
to rise fast and take us further and further away from the Paris
targets. Is it not necessary to think about not only skills for
our own net zero but skills to develop entirely new initiatives
both in the production of low-carbon energy and in carbon
absorption, which has been rather neglected and can be met on a
much bigger scale—not only by trees but by entirely new
strategies which are now being discussed?
(Con)
Indeed, my noble friend makes a very good point. The UK is
responsible for only 1% of worldwide emissions; it is very much a
global problem that we have to work internationally to tackle.
There are many exciting new developments in a whole range of
industries and technologies that we want to encourage as much as
possible. Technology could be our friend here.
(LD)
My Lords, over one-third of our homes are inadequately insulated,
and yet after many failed green deals, the industry that will
actually deliver the solution to the problem has lost confidence.
It says that if it is going to invest in research, equipment and
skills training, it wants the confidence of the Government’s home
insulation targets placed firmly into legislation. Why have the
Government refused?
(Con)
We are working very closely with the retrofitting insulation
industry. The noble Lord is aware that we are spending billions
of pounds helping low-income families to upgrade their
accommodation in the low-income private sector, social housing
and through local authorities. This is a well-advanced programme,
and we also have the ECO scheme which spends up to £1 billion a
year on green retrofitting measures, so there is a lot going on
this sector.
(Lab)
My Lords, over four decades ago there was a similar scheme to try
and push green jobs, based on a fairly similar tripartite-plus
system. It was not a great success, although it had a lot of
support. Will the Minister ask his civil servants to see if there
are any lessons to be learned from that experience that will make
sure it works now?
(Con)
I thank the noble Lord for his suggestion based on his long
experience in government. I will certainly pass on that
suggestion to my ministerial colleague, and I am sure we would
want to learn lessons from past experiences.
(Con)
My Lords, if my noble friend believes the Government’s strategy
when it says that green energy will create more jobs at higher
pay than producing an equivalent amount of conventional energy,
does that not mean it is wasteful, and that green energy must be
more expensive than conventional energy?
(Con)
It is the entire sector, not just the generation of energy; it
includes all the retrofitting standards, the upgrading of
insulation, new homes built to higher standards and others that
have been mentioned. We are confident that there will be a net
increase of jobs, but we do have a legally binding commitment to
net zero which we need to pursue.
(Con)
My Lords, I join the Minister in paying tribute to , who was inspirational to me,
as an 18 year old, to get involved in politics, and I thank him
for all his service.
I have a background in recruitment: can the Minister tell me how
many individuals he estimates would be needed in, say, the next
five years to join a green skills workforce?
(Con)
It is very hard to put a precise number on that, but I can give
my noble friend some figures. Our net zero strategy supports up
to 190,000 jobs by the middle of the 2020s, and up to 440,00 jobs
by 2030.
(GP)
My Lords, the major IPCC report out this week said that the shift
from incremental change to transformational change was crucial,
given the fact that carbon emissions are heading in the wrong
direction. Do the Government really think they are finding the
true innovation, the true change, rather than just doing business
as usual with a bit of greenwash added?
(Con)
It is very much not business as usual. As the noble Baroness will
be aware, we have one of the most ambitious decarbonisation
targets in the western world. We have decarbonised faster than
most other industrialised countries. I am sorry if the noble
Baroness does not like that, but it remains a fact. As I said in
an earlier answer, we are responsible for 1% of worldwide
emissions. Yes, we need to make progress in this country, but we
also have to look at a global scale and work with partners across
the world to bring down their emissions as well.
(LD)
My Lords, can I make a plea to the Government? So often when we
talk about green jobs—as has been mentioned already, in fact—it
is nearly always around green energy, renewable energy and all of
that side, whereas there is a huge need for those skills that are
meeting the biodiversity emergency in this country and globally,
as the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, said. In particular, I mean
biologists, ecologists, horticulturalists and farm advisers—there
is a real shortage of these. If we want that emergency to be
solved as well, we need jobs and training in that sector.
(Con)
Yes, I am very happy to agree with the noble Lord on that point.
He makes some good observations.
(CB)
My Lords, there is no denying that environmental illiteracy is a
major problem in both the public and private sector. What
measures are being taken to embrace technologies such as smart
meters to change behaviours?
(Con)
One of my ministerial responsibilities is the smart metering
programme, which has quietly gone ahead in the background. I
forget the exact figures, but I think we now have 25 million
smart meters installed in this country, and the programme is
already delivering net benefits. We have launched a publicity
drive to drive take-up even further, and we are looking to see
what we can do to expand it even more, because smart meters are a
very good thing.
