Clause 39
Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill
2:30 pm
Nick Gibb (Shadow Minister, Children, Schools and Families; Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, Conservative)
It is a pleasure to take over the shadow ministerial baton from my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings. Henceforth, there will be no more juicy or ursine prose from Opposition Members. Our contributions will become more prosaic and, if I may so, a little dull—with the Liberal exception, of course. I am sure that we shall be hearing plenty of ursine and porcine phrases from Liberal Democrat Members.
Clause 39 is an important provision giving employees the right to request time off to train or study. Proposed new section 63D(3) of the Employment Rights Act 1996, which the clause would insert, states:
“The application must be made for the purpose of enabling the employee to undertake study or training (or both)”.
It is refreshing to see a reference to study and training in an education Bill from the present Government, rather than the catch-all words “learning” or “learner”, which have become the latest jargon designed to obfuscate rather than to clarify. “Time to Train”, the consultation document published last year by the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, talks about giving employees
“a right to a serious conversation with their employer about their skills development”.
The Conservatives agree with that right. The proper training is essential in any business—for example, restaurant staff should know the details of a menu. I am sure that the staff at the restaurant that my hon. Friend was at last night knew the menu backwards and were able to describe it to him extremely well. Other examples showing how the right training is essential include doctors in a GP surgery, accountants providing tax advice and employees fitting components on an assembly line. A business that fails to train and develop its staff will not be successful. Sometimes, however, an employee’s personal ambition might be overlooked by an employer. An employer might be happy, for example, to let a good kitchen assistant continue in that role rather than let them train to be a chef. Another example could be a staff and associate specialist doctor who wants to train to become a consultant.
The impact assessment states:
“Over a third of people with poor literacy and numeracy receive benefits...compared with less than one in ten of those with better skills.”
That is why the Conservative party makes no apology for its focus on reading in primary schools, or for its insistence that, instead of the whole-language approaches that have dominated over the past 40 years, schools employ tried and tested methods such as synthetic phonics—[Interruption.] I thought that I would get that into my first major contribution to the line-by-line scrutiny.
The impact assessment considered three options: doing nothing, employing a voluntary approach and legislating for a right to time to study. The Institute of Directors says:
“the merits of pursuing a voluntary approach were not adequately explored. No evidence was presented to support the implication that employers are not open to training requests, deny employees the opportunity to discuss training needs or do not treat requests seriously. Employees already have the ‘right’ to request training — there is no bar to these conversations whatsoever”.
The IOD adds that
“Skills are crucial to the UK's future competitiveness, but so is the maintenance of a low regulatory environment in which business and enterprise can flourish. The introduction of a right to request training is not simply the wrong solution, it adds to the pipeline of impending regulations that will add to the administrative burden on employers. This is undesirable in any case. In the middle of a recession, it is spectacularly unhelpful.”
The Minister’s response to those genuine concerns expressed by the IOD would be helpful.