|
Skills Improvement in Scotland
A debate on motion
S2M-2694, in the name of Jim Wallace, on Skills Improvement in Scotland.
The Deputy
Presiding Officer (Trish Godman):
The next item of business is a debate on motion S2M-2694, in the name of Jim
Wallace, on skills.
The Deputy First
Minister and Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning (Mr Jim Wallace):
This afternoon, I open a debate on an issue that I am sure everyone in the
chamber recognises as fundamentally important to ensuring the future
prosperity of Scotland. Although members clearly have different views about
the means, I think that there is unanimity in the chamber on the ultimate
goal and a shared belief that achieving improved skills is central to
Scotland's future economic performance.
It is important to acknowledge at the outset that our approach to skills
improvement in Scotland is in some respects different from the approach that
is taken in the rest of the United Kingdom. That is right and sensible, as
we seek to meet specific Scottish needs in a variety of ways. Our approach
to the skills agenda must have a comprehensive rationale. That, too, is
important.
The Deputy Minister
for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning (Allan Wilson):
The debate has been good and interesting, and there have been some excellent
contributions, not least from Alex Neil, if he does not mind my saying so. I
ticked off the boxes as he spoke and it can reasonably be claimed that he
got nine out of 10, which is a pass rate by any standards.
I readily accept that we could and should do more, not least in the NEET
category to which Alex Neil referred. As members know, I got the job as
Deputy Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning relatively recently,
and one of my personal priorities - as well as one of the Executive's
partnership priorities — is to address the problem of young people who are
not in education, employment or training. We are discussing a number of
ideas, which we will be happy to share with the Enterprise and Culture
Committee in due course, because we lag behind other parts of Europe and
places beyond Europe in that regard. There may be many reasons why that is
so, but we need much better data that show who the young people in question
are and why they are in such a position. I categorically assure members that
as we develop, roll out and discuss the employability strategy with the
Enterprise and Culture Committee, the priority will be to address that
issue.
Since I got this job, it has been clear to me — indeed, it was clear to me
long before then, in the 28 or so years in which I worked in the trade union
movement and had a close interest in skills development — that skills in all
their various forms are absolutely crucial to the development of our growing
economy. Skills are absolutely vital to our future economic prosperity and
to the well-being not only of individuals, but of communities that depend on
the industries that feed off those skills.
We all know that for Scotland to be truly prosperous, it must draw on the
potential of its workforce, its people, its human resource. That is why the
skills and training agenda is one of the most important political issues of
the day. That is why we believe that through our lifelong learning strategy,
we must not only develop the skills of today, but constantly revisit and
develop those skills to match the requirements of the global economy in
which we now compete and the needs and requirements of business and
industry, through an employer-led approach to rolling out skills training.
In the short time that I have been doing this job, I have been enormously
encouraged by the individuals and groups that I have met, who have
demonstrated the genuine difference that learning new skills makes to them
and their lifestyles. For instance, I met a number of former drug addicts
who have transformed their lives and potential by learning skills and going
through new training to bring them back to a normal human existence. There
is nothing better in this job than to see that process come to fruition.
Such training benefits not just individuals, but wider society as a whole.
Skills can provide individuals with a gateway to a confident, positive and
prosperous future. That is why we have put so much emphasis on them. The
partnership agreement makes it clear that growing the economy is our top
priority and skills improvement and development are an important part of
that.
I agree absolutely with what Cathie Craigie said. Like her, I will never see
my 50th birthday again, but it is easy to forget how bad things used to be.
More than 34,000 apprentices are currently receiving skills training. In
addition, more than 90,000 people have received training through a modern
apprenticeship since the programme began. Through the new deal, we have
virtually eradicated youth unemployment in this country. It is to the
eternal shame of the Conservative party, and indeed anyone in the
nationalist party who does not support the new deal programme, that they
seek to dispense with the programme and abandon young people again to the
hopelessness that was the Thatcher years.
The Futureskills Scotland report was badly misrepresented by Adam Ingram. As
Des McNulty correctly pointed out, the skills supply in Scotland is
generally fit for purpose, with vacancies as a result of skills shortages
representing less than 1 per cent of employee posts. This is not a
controversial thing to say: skills shortages are not necessarily a bad thing
per se. They are symptomatic of a growing, vibrant expanding economy.
Alex Neil:
I accept that general point, but skills shortages go side by side with
150,000 people who are officially unemployed in Scotland. There is a clear
breakdown in getting more of those 150,000 unemployed people trained and
retrained to take up current vacancies.
Allan Wilson:
There is no dispute between us on that point. The Futureskills Scotland
survey shows that where skills shortages exist, they are predominantly in
the growing business sector that is mostly small and expanding. Were such
shortages to act as a constraint on growth, it would undoubtedly be a matter
of greater concern to us, but there is no evidence of that.
If we are to expand employment and training opportunities, we must not only
continue to invest in the public sector and further education, which I will
come to in a minute, but ensure that there is growth in training
opportunities in the private sector. I do not disagree about that.
Futureskills Scotland did not publish any information about the number of
job applicants who lack certain skills. The report refers to the proportion
of respondents to the employers skill survey who reported a skills shortage
vacancy and who said that applicants for those vacancies lacked certain
skills. Of the 5 per cent of establishments that reported being affected by
a skills shortage vacancy, 24 per cent felt that applicants lacked basic
numeracy skills and 29 per cent felt that they lacked basic literacy skills.
Comparatively speaking, those percentages are extremely small proportions of
the total.
Murdo Fraser is wrong to say that 29 per cent of respondents with skills
shortage vacancies reported that applicants lacked basic literacy skills.
That ranked only eighth in the list of 12 skills that were reported as
lacking. For example, it was some way behind oral communication skills,
which was cited as lacking by 57 per cent of the 5 per cent of respondents
who reported being affected by a skills shortage vacancy. I am not being
complacent or suggesting that there is no problem, but the problem is not of
the order of magnitude that Murdo Fraser made it out to be.
Murdo Fraser is right to refer to the fact that the Conservative Government
incorporated the further education colleges. However, it was not the act of
incorporation that was controversial but the proposition that further
education establishments should compete with each other for students rather
than co-operating to build a skills agenda.
It is true that the Conservatives increased the number of places in higher
education but they did not fund that expansion. The reason why they could
not do so was that they were paying too much money to people to be
unemployed. Not only were they paying people not to be economically active
but they did not have the money that they should have been investing in
further and higher education because they had 3 million people on the dole.
They were increasing education opportunities but not providing employment
opportunities at the end of the route. That was a recipe for disaster, which
is why the Conservatives are sitting on the Opposition benches and will not
be standing in my position for the foreseeable future.
Murdo Fraser:
That is an interesting analysis. Of course, many people would say that many
people now work for the Government. Since 1997, we have lost 1 million jobs
in manufacturing. Scottish manufacturing is now at its lowest ebb — lower
than it has been in the history of this country. What does the Executive
have to crow about in relation to the state of the Scottish economy?
Allan Wilson:
There has indeed been a
shake-out in the manufacturing industry, but at the same time, we have
record levels of employment across the economy, the longest period of
sustained economic growth for 200 years and more people in employment now
than has been the case since records began.
Alex Neil:
Not in Scotland.
Allan Wilson:
My statement is equally true of Scotland. I will deal with the nationalists'
proposition in a minute but first I want to talk about employers and unions.
Employers play a hugely important role in driving up Scotland's skills base.
We understand that and are working with them closely through the skills for
business network and Investors in People to ensure that their contribution
is valued and maximised.
I would not want to leave the podium without mentioning the trade union
movement, as it is equally important. Our lifelong learning strategy speaks
of the important role that unions can play in learning. Unions have a key
role to play in workforce development, by influencing and working in
partnership with employers, and they have an important role in leading
workplace learning projects.
That role will be enhanced in the coming years with the development of the
union learning academy. That is why we have invested £3.3 million in 54
union learning projects and are investing a further £1.6 million during the
period from 2006 to 2008.
Mr Mather made reference to Quebec, which was a departure for him. I had
been expecting the usual litany of small, independent European countries to
be rolled out as examples of places that are better than us. However, we
learned that it is now Quebec that will be held up to us as the epitome of
economic performance, which is strange, considering that Quebec is not
independent and is part of a much larger economic union, albeit a federal
one. Does that not somewhat destroy the member's constitutional argument
that economic growth can be born only from independence, out with the
economic union to which he refers?
I conclude with some important statistics. Scotland's percentage of tertiary
graduates is well above the mean. In fact, we surpass Japan, Spain, Sweden,
Ireland, France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and the Czech
Republic. On the percentage of the population aged 25 to 64 that has
attained at least upper secondary education, Scotland again exceeds the mean
and is ahead of the Netherlands, France, the rest of the UK, Belgium,
Australia, Ireland, Iceland, Luxembourg, Greece, Poland, Italy, Spain,
Turkey and Portugal. Last but by no means least, on the percentage of the
population aged 25 to 64 that had attained at least higher education in
2001, Scotland exceeds Sweden, Spain, Switzerland, Finland, Hungary,
Ireland, New Zealand, Germany, Mexico, Belgium, Greece, Poland, France,
Luxembourg, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Italy, Turkey, Austria and
Portugal. All those countries support the Executive's motion.
The Presiding Officer:
The next question is, that amendment S2M-2694.1, in the name of Jim Mather,
which seeks to amend motion S2M-2694, in the name of Jim Wallace, on skills,
be agreed to. Are we agreed?
Members:
No.
The Presiding Officer:
The result of the
division is: For 20, Against 82, Abstentions 9.
Amendment disagreed to.
The Presiding Officer:
The next question is,
that amendment S2M-2694.2, in the name of Murdo Fraser, which seeks to amend
motion S2M-2694, in the name of Jim Wallace, on skills, be agreed to.
Are we agreed?
Members:
No.
The Presiding Officer:
The result of the division is: For 17, Against 69, Abstentions 25.
Amendment disagreed to.
The Presiding Officer:
The final question is,
that motion S2M-2694, in the name of Jim Wallace, on skills, be agreed to.
Are we agreed?
Members:
No.
The Presiding Officer:
The result of the
division is: For 66, Against 15, Abstentions 30.
Motion agreed to.
That the Parliament acknowledges the importance of a policy of effective
skills improvement and the contribution it can make to Scotland's
prosperity; supports the objectives of the Scottish Executive's lifelong
learning strategy which has helped raise the skill levels of Scotland's
current workforce and increased the potential for future skills improvement;
recognises that the sustained success of the Modern Apprenticeship scheme
and record investment in Scotland's colleges
have contributed significantly to improved skill levels; welcomes the
Executive's commitment to improving adult literacy and numeracy rates and to
better preparing Scotland's young people for the world of work through
enterprise education and greater vocational learning opportunities, and
believes that a continued focus on skills can help maintain Scotland's
position as European Region of the Future.
To view the entire debate -
Please
Click Here
|
