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Welcome to to this, the the second of C Levelling Up lecture series.

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And this session is about skills and skills that are appropriate for a society that provides good jobs for wherever you live in the country,

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basically for a large majority of the population.

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And I want to introduce three people who are a superbly qualified between them to talk about this process.

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So I will introduce first the the the Baroness who is going to chair the whole process tonight of the discussion,

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which is Baroness Allison Woolf and Baroness Woolf, has been Baroness Professor Wolf.

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I'm sure there's some other titles as well, but that she has two different hats on and she's speaking tonight with only one of those hats.

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On that hat is as a professor at King's College London, where she is a world authority on on this whole subject of skills.

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And she's had a lifetime of work on this other hat, we should say,

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is that she spends part of her week in the policy unit at 10 Downing Street, where she also advises on a very similar topic, shall we say.

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But tonight she is speaking purely in her capacity as an academic, and that is important to to recognise.

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Sitting next to her is. So, Chris, husbands and Sir Chris Husbands is an academic,

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but he's speaking in his capacity as as vice chancellor of Sheffield Hallam University and Sheffield Hallam University,

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is generally the top rated university in the country for student engagement, both for the learning experience that students get while at university,

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but also in the interaction between the university and the city region in which it's located.

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So he's going to be really speaking in this capacity as vice chancellor rather than as an academic in his own right.

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But of course, he's allowed to straight into a wider area of expertise.

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And then I'm extremely excited, honoured that that Ian Stewart has somehow found the time to come here.

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Ian is the chief executive of HSBC, which is the first of the major banks to relocate out of London to a provincial city,

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Birmingham, and is also a major employer in South Yorkshire.

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And so even as here in three capacities tonight,

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but the first capacity is that he is a major employer of skilled labour in Birmingham and in South and in South Yorkshire.

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And so he's the pioneer of a major firm employing skilled labour outside the magic circle of the southeast.

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And so in his capacity as an employer in a major provincial city,

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this is a really exciting he's pioneered and we want to learn about that pioneering role.

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But HSBC is also got a huge footprint in the Midlands and South Yorkshire.

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It is a major bank operating with Sony's small and medium firms in those regions.

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And so the second rule is he's at the top of a massive group of people deciding on loans for these SMEs.

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And it's in that capacity where he is also very important. Have these SMEs got the skills needed to prepare a convincing case for a loan?

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And that's enormously important because SMEs outside the Southeast have got to grow and at the moment,

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the finance for some years is very heavily concentrated in the southeast.

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So, for example, two thirds of all venture capital finance research,

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and he's just goes to the south reserves in the South East because the financial system is so heavily concentrated in London.

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So these are the the roles that we're particularly excited to hear Ian talk about.

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And on that note, let me hand it to Baroness Wolf, who in her professorial capacity will guide the discussion forward.

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Thank you very much. Thank you, everybody.

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I thought that it might be helpful to everybody if I started the proceedings off by just giving us a quick history tour.

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In a sense, because skills, the need for more skills, whether or not there's a skills crisis, this is something that people talk about constantly.

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But it's also very easy to talk past each other.

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And also, I think, very easy to miss the fact that while there are some areas where we have major challenges,

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there are also some areas where actually we do very well.

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And first of all, I think it's quite helpful to go back and be look at what what this country was like not that long ago.

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So Parfux have the first slide.

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I think it's really important to realise how rapidly this country has changed and the world has changed and the impact this has had,

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both on the skills that we need. The infrastructure that provides them, so if you went back in a village just to the 1970s,

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a very large proportion of school leavers who left school at 16 and most people did went into apprenticeships.

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University was for a tiny minority.

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Most professions, which these days of graduate people trained through articles, which was factory of homeless apprenticeship.

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And it was a very different world.

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I mean, in the context of tonight, our concern about levelling up this was a a more level land manufacturing, manufacturing, employment.

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More important, they were much more geographically dispersed.

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And also, this was a period when Towns still had, as they had had since the beginning of the century.

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Typically what was often known as the tech rather than further education college.

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And that was where apprenticeships did. Their apprentices did their off the job training.

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This was these were very vocational institutions. And the thing I'd like to emphasise, they were very, very closely linked to local employers.

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If you were running such a college, you got some of your income from usually local government,

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not central government, but you got a lot of it directly from your local employers.

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Now today jumping over a lot of very messy and complicated policy in between.

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Apprenticeships are very difficult to obtain the highly desired by many young people that difficult to obtain.

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They are better than they were 10 years ago, but they are in short supply.

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But what we haven't said is we have a mass higher education system, and I think it's impossible to discuss the challenges of our current skill system

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without being aware that we have created a gigantic higher education system,

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as have most countries in the world, the developed world. And so we've got about 50 percent of the cohort attending.

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That's not where with high in the OECD tables, we're not particularly unusual.

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And compared to the 1980s in the nineteen nineties at the same time, adult and part time participation are down.

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We've gone to a highly centralised system of and adult education funded by a local by central government managed by central government.

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Although there's been some devolution to the mayoral combined authorities and the numbers in these

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in in the numbers who are actually taking further and adult education courses has been going down.

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And last but by no means least, of course, the economy has been transformed, so manufacturing has declined again.

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This is not just this country I, we are no different from, for example, France in this respect,

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but our manufacturing has declined and our globally competitive industries are increasingly service industries,

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and they're concentrated in a few parts of the country. So this is a massive change.

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And I think it's not surprising in many ways that our skills infrastructure has struggled to keep up supply.

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So have we had a long standing skills crisis? Well, yes and no.

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British governments have been obsessing about Germany since the middle of the 19th century.

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It's also true that we have had a huge upheaval in the economy.

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Manufacturing shrunk, regional colleges have grown to some extent.

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Skills actually make things worse rather than better.

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Employers consistently do report major skills shortages,

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and the area which has shrunk really dramatically is the area of mid-level technical education.

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And that's somewhere where we are really quite distinctive that if you looked at many of our competitor countries,

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what one thinks of a sort of technician mid-level.

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Skills and courses and provision are very poor, but also we have to be aware that know our economy has continued to grow,

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hasn't done very well since the 2008 crash, but we have gone on growing.

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You know, it's we are not poor. Quite the opposite.

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We are globally competitive in a range of industries and universities are excellent.

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They rank extremely high on all measures and they do now educate.

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The overwhelming majority of our professions, a few accountants have hung in, but otherwise this is a huge shift.

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So, you know, this is skills and on this we are we are doing pretty well.

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Next slide. So where are the problems?

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Well, if you look at lawyers and designers and economists and research scientists, I mean, no, we don't have a skill shortage.

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We're doing pretty well.

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We may have short term problems, but lots of competition, everybody chasing the best, but there is no problem in the skill system about it.

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We are not good at responding to rapid increases in demand and skill changes.

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If you look at the whole digital area again, I'm not saying the rest of the world is doing great either,

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but there are genuine, pervasive skill shortages and we don't seem to be very good at responding to them fast.

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We have a long standing and worsening shortage of technicians.

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We have a severe shortage of what used to be called skilled trades,

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cross level three construction, where we've actually set up a sort of vicious circle.

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It seems to me where you rely on immigration to solve this and then the school system because again and then you rely on immigration more.

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And we also have HGV drivers. But you know, honestly, I don't think that's an issue.

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I mean, of course, it's an issue if you're trying to get stuff delivered.

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But I think we get too hung up on the idea that everything should happen instantly.

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So the skills shortage that's had the most headlines of the time that we're making this podcast is HGV drivers.

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I suspect if anybody wants to this in three years time, we'll get what they signed.

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But this is what I want to underline as well. We we are doing fine at the top, and in many ways, of course, we could do even better.

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But you know, honestly, we're trying to find many of the top and then in the top end skills,

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we are not doing well in what's known as non advanced adult education,

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and we have been for the rest of the century flatlining at best and getting worse at worst.

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So, you know, our apprenticeship numbers, which back in the 1970s were very, very healthy.

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You know, there are things that have got better.

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If you unpack that a bit, you'll find there are probably too many people who are older and deployees rather than young.

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But you know, it's not it's not going off, it's actually going down.

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And adult education is also going down. And finally, I think last night, those two slides, we have low levels of investment in skills by employers.

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It's an interesting question why, but we do. We had over half of male school leavers entering apprenticeships today.

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We have only about five percent of the 18 year old cohort at best, the three percent of last in 2020.

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And government surveys show consistent declines in the volume of employment, investment in training and a lot of employers do do is statutory.

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And meanwhile, in our university sector, if I could have just the last slide,

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we have basically abandoned this mid-level what used to be and the HNC level training barely exists.

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We have huge numbers of people doing undergraduate degrees and very large numbers of people doing postgraduate degrees.

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And we have a great hold in the middle.

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So let me stop that because I think that what that hopefully brings home is the fact that we have a very, very.

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Out of kilter system, it's not a total failure, but it's out of kilter and it has.

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Got to this point alongside, and I would say it's not been unrelated to the the rapid shifts in the economy that have

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actually made a certain number of high skill service industries extremely important,

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but where a large number of things, including the skill system,

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have not done anything to offset this in areas where the older industries are declining and where we've

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had developing this growing divergence between some parts of the country and other parts of the country.

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But at the same time, it's not just in those areas that we have a problem because we are also just generally

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facing a situation in which there are real skill shortages and a key part of the economy.

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And the thing that is most evident, at least to me, is this I would always say flight from,

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but certainly an ability to deal with the need for people who are really very skilled but not best served by trading in universities.

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And those are also the skills which tend to be very, very closely linked to changes,

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often quite rapid changes in the technology and requirements of employers.

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And one of the things that strikes me most is this contrast between, you know,

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not a utopian past for the past in which our system was much more closely linked to local employer,

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local employer needs and looking towards mom than it is today. And the fact that those are the sorts of jobs which people use to.

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Effectively pay for the training cells, and with those are now.

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The training is paid for by government if it's paid for Toll. A lot of the time is not paid for a toll.

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So I'd like at this point to to turn to my two experts on my left.

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Chris, first and and and and particularly sort of interested in your perspective because you.

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Run attempt to run a very, very large university, and we both work in Mecca.

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Your arrest is one that has that started off with a very, very specific vocational orientation,

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has has developed over time and is very plugged into its its locality.

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And I'd like to ask first, Chris from that perspective and then in from the perspective,

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an employer working across the across the country, but but also still retaining some presence in the southeast.

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I think, you know, looking at this, looking at the scene here, first of all,

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do do you agree with with my basic diagnosis that we have a top off that's functioning?

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Not perfectly. I mean, I could expand four hours on the problems with universities,

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but but functioning pretty well and driving driving the prosperity that has been

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genuine in decades and another bit which is really not functioning well and above all,

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not serving local needs. So, Alison, thank you very much.

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I'm always struck whenever I listen to you, but by how much I agree with your analysis, I think that's broadly right.

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I'm going to just try and take in two or three directions to point out the analysis.

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I think there are some slightly different things going on here.

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We have made some national policy decisions, which I think have not helped, and they've not necessarily been the major drivers here.

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But at a time when the economy is changing, they've not helped. So for, for example,

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the 2012 sea settlement for universities makes it very difficult for students to borrow for less than a three year undergraduate programme.

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So, so and what we what we saw after 2012 was this massive collapse in part time participation in higher education.

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So think of that as a reduction in flexibility. And I think that's it was David Willetts, who was the architect of the reforms,

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says that that was an unintended consequence and he's right about that.

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And I think that we're saying, you're right to say that the problem is not in the in the top half of the system, that by and large,

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the university system is functioning well, has responded to market signals as regards this,

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but it seems invasive, perhaps a bit less flexible they should be.

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But by and large is working well for me, the real difficulties white light in three areas.

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The first is if we look at the sectors of the economy where you identify skill shortages, they're quite different.

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So in digital, it's absolutely clear that the the the economy is moving faster than the capacity of this or any skill system to respond to it.

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And that's a real challenge for skill systems in this country and internationally.

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And it probably means we need to rethink really hard about what's the vehicle for the delivery of skills and a very fast moving parts of the economy.

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I don't think the same applies in engineering.

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I certainly don't think the same applies in construction, but a bit in construction with some of the intelligent construction work.

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Not entirely. So there's a big problem there. There's a second absolutely enormous problem, which is more character, more unique to this country,

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which is this if you happen to be academically able young person your route through the

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school school system is clearly mapped out as his GCSE and A-level at his university,

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if you will, different in any respect. The system is not clear,

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and the routes through the system for the I'm going to use the phrase bottom 50 percent for the low retaining 50 percent are less clear.

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And what is particularly challenging is that they become even less clear.

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The lower down that distribution you are. And that's just a crazy way of constructing a system.

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It ought to be the other way around the academically most attaining what have the most difficult route because they're the most able to navigate it.

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And the academic elite, the least able should have the clearest, clearest route through the third bit is that, as you said,

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we we used to have a system which was well structured around tax free collisions, as we now call them around polytechnics and universities.

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And we have, by and large an institutional structure that is geared for an economy that no longer exists.

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Now digging our way out of that, there's not a single route out of it.

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But I think holding those three different problems in our heads is partly what we need to do.

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Very much in. Over to you.

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Do you recognise these problems and as an employer hiring, not across the whole spectrum because there are obviously a lot of jobs you don't have.

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Is there something that you recognise and all that institutional changes we should be making?

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Or where would you start at a grand plan or even a local plan?

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Well, thanks very much, Alison.

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I really enjoyed your slides and it's quite funny because of a couple of pieces there that really resonate with me personally.

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So I left school at a very young age and went into technical college.

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I went to night school to get my qualifications.

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I was a technical college and it was it was a really good establishment and I think it's a good establishment and it was very helpful to me.

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But it was all mature students that were there. It was it was people who were in their 20s, 30s and older who were there for further education.

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And it's interesting what you're saying about that because my motto if you if you've got an academic background or parents that push you now,

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there's a big part of your own parents as well on parenting about how you're pushed in a certain direction and it is very clearly mapped out for you.

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And then you've got this huge population who it's obviously not so well, not too far.

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But let me tell you what we try and do as a business. If you could get in quite deep here about are you getting taught the right things at schools?

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But the first thing I look for when I'm employing is a really good attitude,

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and I think a really good attitude is crucial for us because what we end up getting is we get a very nice canvas and buy a canvas.

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I mean,

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generally well-educated people and we take people very young who we would bring into our apprenticeship programmes and we've got graduate programmes,

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et cetera. But first and foremost, I would say that is the canvas.

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And then we spend years putting layers and layers of paint on that canvas by doing our own in-house training and development.

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And some of the things that we train on today are a complete mind shift from where we used to what we used to focus our training on.

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So we will train today, people on resilience. I don't know for people in the room or people watching, but if you're if you're in your 50s, as I am,

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you know, nobody ever taught me anything on resilience that was just something that was never done.

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We train people in empathy because we think empathy is a really important skill nowadays.

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So the skills that we're training people in are very, very different to what was maybe done before.

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I really take on board a point by which just on speed, the world operates around speed now,

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and that causes all sorts of problems because we move billions of currency around the globe every single day.

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But it's a frozen of paradise, so we've got to train people to spot fraudsters operating as well.

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These were these were things that even 10 years ago were not in our banking environment.

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And of course, with the much less use of cash than traditional ways of being educated,

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the Bank three was really the tail or work in a bank is diluted quite low over recent years.

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What we've got to think about going forward, I think, is the needs of our customers and what are going to be there needs going forward.

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And you have to train for those needs.

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And if I if I was really, really clever, I would tell you what those needs are going to be over the next 20 years.

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Of course, we can't do that. So you're always trying to second guess what the needs are going to be.

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But certainly in my industry, they will be quite different to what we are 20 years in the past.

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But people are still going to want to buy a home if we still want to be insured.

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They're still going to want health policies.

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All in all, the sort of basic products I think will still be with us, but they'll be quite different and they'll want these products immediately.

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So. So it's how you deliver products in a very safe way at the time that the customers want it.

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So the skills that I need are quite technical. I'm very struck by two two things that you as well.

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I want to start by being something which since you both said I think in different ways, Chris,

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you were talking about the fact that when things move very fast, it's really hard for any organised skill system to keep up with them.

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And I think that's right, because first of all, organised school systems are inherently bureaucratic and that's just that's just the case.

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I mean, if we go back to to the favourite favourite preoccupation of this country since, you know, since the great tech special, how to do it.

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But you know, if you're going to have an organised skill system with.

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And the thing which produces qualifications or licences or anything of the sort and which has public money in it,

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particularly in this day of extreme accountability, you end up with something which is often very high quality, but often actually quite rigid.

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And I think you're right.

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I think you see if you take the examples that I had, which is sort of rapidly changing versus things where there's a clear skill set,

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we just don't have enough of them engineering technicians, plumbers, whatever.

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I think they all different. And what you were talking about in this large company, which does do a very great deal of training,

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it has to and it's a quick two and and it does it now.

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One of the things, which is very depressing and, you know, pretty clearly established,

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is that the employers in this country do not spend on average a lot of training.

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They don't spend a great deal and. I think there are probably a number of reasons for this.

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Some, some good, some bad, but there will always be good reasons.

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And so I think that, you know, thinking then not just about a huge and successful company like yours,

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but thinking about smaller and smaller companies, smaller organisations, some of which may be very small, some of which will be sort of mid-sized.

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How do we make it possible for them to to to keep up to date?

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I think this is the highly related also tipped to pull your your preoccupation, not preoccupation.

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But you know what this is all about.

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If you're going to level up, then then there is a real challenge for companies and employers in small places who are also in, you know, small.

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Medium. Moderately large, but not large companies, because you are busy keeping yourself alive.

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Is he keeping your self employed? Your first duty is to keep it.

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Keep the thing working, keep keep your staff employed,

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keep your customers up and actually generating training that keeps you up to date with the rapidly changing economies is very hard,

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and I would like to come back in later to the issue of how do we actually make technical,

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further education colleges more overtly linked into into local employers.

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But. What I think comes out very clearly from what you have both said is that the has to a successful company,

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however tiny has to change, has to train, has to be know what it is that's going on out there and has to move with it.

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And I do think that's hard and I'm just to tell a couple of and some slightly depressing anecdotes, if you like.

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A couple of years ago, I did some quite interesting focus groups with small companies asking much about digital skills.

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These were these were successful small companies.

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On average, they would be employing sort of 10 to 15 people could be a couple of coffee shops, could be a travel agency, if not mostly manufacturing.

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That was a small manufacturing company. And I think that I thought they were they were good.

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They were good. But except when it was statutory, they didn't really try much.

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And partly it was because they would just say they weren't going fast.

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They were managing, they were doing OK. I think partly it was that particular small company.

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It's very hard to just release people and send them off for a course. I mean, you know, you have to keep the price up.

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And it was partly that they they just didn't really know how to start what it was that they should be doing.

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So they think they chucked on. So what do we do?

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I. Well, you get those. Well, I think one of the so many sad things about the pandemic,

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but one of the great things about the pandemic is how well take no technology has walked has been phenomenal.

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Well, it's what we we've got two hundred and forty thousand employees globally, and I think we had 230000 working from home within about three weeks.

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So it was unbelievable how well technology work.

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I've got, of course, here in this house, I might be miles along with this, but I I think we're going to move in a very different place.

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And I hope we do because society needs this. And it's what it's one very simple world, which is sheer.

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I I think there's an absolute need for a bank the size of us to share an alarming out.

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And I think with technology, you know, you can do that much more easily.

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And I think what you saw through the pandemic is, you know,

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when people are putting their minds together to come up with a drug to to get us through this very difficult period,

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hundreds of thousands of people came together for the greater good.

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And I genuinely believe people like us who have got the infrastructure, we have got the capabilities.

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We've we've got to share that with small businesses because if you think about the UK and the UK is a very interesting market.

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Six million businesses in the UK five point seventy five point eight million are small businesses, of which 5.5 million are owner operated.

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So one person, you know, so it's it really is this movement of people.

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They don't have time to go and do all these other things they would like to do, but they they can spare an hour to go online.

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In the evening, they can find time to dial into an information session.

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Companies like us have got to share all this technical knowledge that we've got

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to allow others to expand and we just have to stop put our arms around it.

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And I think that would be a major step forward. We should do it for society if nothing else.

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And is there anything that would encourage perhaps less civic minded CEOs than you to do it?

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I think people are beginning to learn the lesson. The biggest one that's going to change over the next 20 years is climate.

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What all finding are we on climate? I was in Glasgow last week.

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It called I was hugely energised by the quality of the conversation, but I really did get the feeling of of we have to share.

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And there was one topic that came out in the, I would say, the suburbs of the conversation and that was around food.

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And the golden rule of a government, any government is you must feed your population.

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And there was an awful lot of conversation about food shortages coming.

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We have to share the knowledge to make sure we feed our population has nothing to do with a bank really evolving.

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It was a very instance out conversations that companies last week.

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So I'm going to pick up all of that, which went out before the pandemic, when I have my job involved in travelling a lot,

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every time I get off a plane in the airport, I saw that fuel bank, which invariably set the world's local bank.

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And I think there is. It may not be your flight anymore, but there is something around there.

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The problem that you identified is a multifaceted problem. There's no big solution to it.

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There may be a series of local solutions,

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and you get to slightly different places depending on whether you start from a business, a skills provider, a young person.

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So I think I think there's not a big answer to this Suzanne answer.

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Well, there is an answer that works for digital and for engineering and for TV and for vehicles,

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but it takes you down the road of a highly regulated skill system, and then they're all inflexibility flexibility in that.

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I can only on this talk about,

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and Paul invited me to do so the things that we do as a university and we're a university operating in a city region of 45000 SMEs.

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So we we run something called our AI lab, which is really about giving students within university opportunities to start their own business,

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and we will give them lots of support on that.

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We've been the Sheffield Innovation Programme that provides skills and innovation development to now several hundred Sheffield City Region SMEs.

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Every department in my university has an employer advisory board is there to

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make sure that the curriculum we offer is as industry focussed as it can be.

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Every degree programme in every subject in the university has work related learning and work experience embedded at every level,

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trying to shorten the lines between the skills provider and the market out there.

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Is that enough? No, it is not. Is that hard work?

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Yes, it is. But we have to find ways. I think it is.

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If that's the word sharing, it is about bringing together the supply side and the demand side.

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It is productive and creating relationships as possible, accepting that there is not going to be a single solution that works in every sector.

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OK, so sitting here and listening to you guys, it sounds like it should be all fine because, you know,

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we've got civic minded employers who are ready to share and, you know, making universities which are plugged into their local economy.

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So. So what is going wrong?

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Oh, so, so so so I want to go back if I can.

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So I think one thing on your slide where I think you're slightly longer 50 percent of the cohort participating.

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So I think the the 18 year old participation in a tree is about thirty eight.

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Thirty nine percent. In this country, 50 percent will will happen at some point.

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The distinctions I'm sorry to sound slightly academic about this because that

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means that the 60 percent of the population that universities are not getting to,

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however, will get and they may be. So there's something what is happening to the to the to the layers below the higher education population.

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And that's a big challenge. And that's where I think the skills, architecture, institutional architecture is very weak.

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You showed the declining participation over the over the last few years.

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That map for that graph would look pretty similar if that was the unit of resource in SC, which has also declined markedly.

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And so you've got very, very stressed institutions that are really, really struggling.

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So I think if we if we want to go back, it's the. Does that something is wrong?

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Yes, it does, it does. It is not top black line.

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If I say that three, well, that's the decline in the units of resource.

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So we have significantly stressed parts of the skill system, which we absolutely need if we're going to be delivering on those mid-level skills.

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And we're not A.I.M. technically, but we're not then articulating the relationships between different parts of the skill system.

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So you get into the track that leads you to university and it's a trend line.

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You get into the track that doesn't lead you to university and it's also a tremlett.

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And that doesn't make very much sense in a world in which the skill demands are changing quickly

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and jobs are going to change three four five six times in the course of a working life.

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So for me, that's the place that needs focus. We've got a system, we've got parts of the system that are significantly stressed.

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They need to be distressed and we need to articulate better the relationships between different parts of the system.

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Nice follow through on that, because it's really a question also for free, and so suppose you are an employer,

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possibly in Birmingham or Sheffield, but possibly somewhere where smaller and you are finding it very hard to get really good skilled employees.

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Know, obviously attitude matters. But but truthfully, it's not the only thing that matters, is it?

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So you'll find it very you're finding it very hard.

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Where would you feel you could go for help in in actually identifying people who were coming through with the relevant

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skills that might then come and apply to you or even to put on something which special a medium sized employer,

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but rather than a very big one,

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it was part of the country where you have a relatively small footprint who would actually be able to to to do something more substantial for you.

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I mean, where would be your first port of call? Well, I think I think we've got to be very honest with ourselves.

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Some people just will not move to another part of the world.

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So, I mean, if you look at what's happening with BBC right now, you're trying to move their colleagues to Manchester.

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You read about it, but we're not moving. When we moved out in UK head office from London to Birmingham, we moved twelve hundred roles.

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We did not leave twelve hundred people. We moved about 100 people.

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Let's be honest, OK, that's how many people wanted to go because they didn't want to move outside London.

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It was just as I've worked in London, all the jobs in London and central, which means you've really got to start planning.

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We started planning about four years ago and if there was a rule that we knew

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was going to be in Birmingham in the future rather than recruit into London,

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we recruited into Birmingham.

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And that was a bit clunky for a period of time because people wanted to be in this head office environment and they weren't.

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They were they were somewhere else until the head office came to them.

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I think what it gets slightly more difficult. And if I think about the part of the world that I grew up and I grew up in,

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a village of twelve hundred people gained a certain skill set is quite difficult because people maybe did not want to work there.

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This is of technology I think is a huge enabler. You can you can dial in, you can go online, you can get some of the skills.

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But at some point you've also got to be quite brave and say this if it's manufacturing,

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if it's if it's services, you may have to uproot yourself to go to where the skills are.

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And I think a lot of people are quite against that.

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But there is a reality check at some point we are is just not going to happen in the part of the world that you're in, and that's quite difficult.

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But I think it is reality. I mean, you've got Birmingham.

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I mean, Birmingham is also, you know, a pretty big place. I mean, or Sheffield, I mean, my sense is that's probably not really hugely problematic.

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Am I wrong? We've got we've got banking Chester in the North West, we've got a in Leeds as well.

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So the one of the reasons we went to Birmingham was we didn't want to cannibalise talent in some of these other places.

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I mean, we have to be sensible about this. Let me just because I asked a lot by journalists, Oh, why don't you move the ball?

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And we never get the talent that is very insulting. OK, it is very, very insulting.

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Oh, we have I. No. Well, I'll caveat that we've had no problem getting talent generally.

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We've had a couple of pockets where it's been quite difficult. So if if I loo Typekit marketing, for example, and we don't have a huge marketing team,

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but getting marketing people in Birmingham for whatever reason is quite difficult because there's a real hotbed of it in London.

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But please don't tell me you won't get talent in Birmingham. We manage to hire amazing talent of amazing talent and in Leeds and in Chester,

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and we've got 3000 people in Sheffield and which you believe it the most. The biggest area of expertise in Sheffield is digital.

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So a real techies are in Sheffield, so thank you very much.

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That chief technology officer. Well, you know,

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but you have if you want really specialist skills and you've got to know on your doorstep

384
00:43:05,500 --> 00:43:10,450
that you've got quite cold features coming into you and that's the education establishment.

385
00:43:10,450 --> 00:43:12,460
We are very lucky in the UK.

386
00:43:12,460 --> 00:43:22,300
We're privileged to live in a country like the UK where there's an abundance of education establishments who produce highly talented individuals.

387
00:43:22,300 --> 00:43:30,100
We've we've just not been as good maybe in the last few years because banking is not as attractive it maybe as it once was.

388
00:43:30,100 --> 00:43:32,650
I think it's an incredibly attractive industry, but I would say that.

389
00:43:32,650 --> 00:43:40,060
But you know, you're competing now with big media companies, et cetera, who who offer employees something slightly differently.

390
00:43:40,060 --> 00:43:44,230
So we've got to compete for that talent, and that's what it gets more difficult for.

391
00:43:44,230 --> 00:43:49,390
SMEs is competing for that town. I was going to say this is.

392
00:43:49,390 --> 00:43:52,360
It's a real issue, and I think it's an incredibly difficult issue.

393
00:43:52,360 --> 00:43:57,160
And I mean, we're talking about skills, but it's also just, you know, other people competing for those skills.

394
00:43:57,160 --> 00:44:05,720
So. So I mean, I think this is a real challenge. And let me push Chris a bit and actually pause you because you said that there are a large,

395
00:44:05,720 --> 00:44:10,570
you know, the the you're saying we've got a wealth of institutions.

396
00:44:10,570 --> 00:44:12,100
But earlier you said, Chris,

397
00:44:12,100 --> 00:44:18,550
I think maybe I misjudged you that you thought the institutional structure was wrong since you show structural was actually just the funding.

398
00:44:18,550 --> 00:44:21,760
That's wrong. Well, that's OK. You're right.

399
00:44:21,760 --> 00:44:31,330
I I think I said that the positive change of institutional structure was stressed, and I think that there are ways in which we could,

400
00:44:31,330 --> 00:44:39,370
with relatively small amounts of funding, dries much better collaboration across across different institutions.

401
00:44:39,370 --> 00:44:43,030
And the experience over the last 20 years is relatively small.

402
00:44:43,030 --> 00:44:49,060
Amounts of money that are tied to specific outcomes of specific collaboration can drive change pretty quickly.

403
00:44:49,060 --> 00:44:53,560
So I think that that's that's where I'd look because I think that building a new set of

404
00:44:53,560 --> 00:45:00,700
institutions is back to the old problem that the economy changes faster than you take.

405
00:45:00,700 --> 00:45:09,010
So smaller towns which are which will normally some of them have even lost a college because most of it will still have a college.

406
00:45:09,010 --> 00:45:14,320
And so then the question becomes, how do you how do you keep those colleges up to date?

407
00:45:14,320 --> 00:45:22,650
And that's a real challenge because they're small and the there is, I think technology will take you so far.

408
00:45:22,650 --> 00:45:28,510
But but if you are sort of.

409
00:45:28,510 --> 00:45:32,720
Working an institution which is not part of a major city.

410
00:45:32,720 --> 00:45:37,020
Yeah, it's it's there's a limit to how far you can go. Get the collaboration.

411
00:45:37,020 --> 00:45:49,630
Oh, I've got two different answers and one involves a brief anecdote is quite interesting because before we went off to work,

412
00:45:49,630 --> 00:45:59,080
so had the National Trust have one of these time capsule houses, somebody that lived there from 1910 through to 1950.

413
00:45:59,080 --> 00:46:03,310
And when the National Trust took it out on me, it was as it was.

414
00:46:03,310 --> 00:46:13,710
And in the visitor centre, there are lots of photographs of Worksop in 1910, and it's a really vibrant economy.

415
00:46:13,710 --> 00:46:19,690
You know, there are lots of independent shops on the high streets. There are local manufacturers.

416
00:46:19,690 --> 00:46:27,430
And so one of the things that is framed as a problem in towns is not simply the collapse of the Chinese in the school system.

417
00:46:27,430 --> 00:46:32,840
It's the really significant shifts in the economy, and that's that's a massive challenge.

418
00:46:32,840 --> 00:46:42,490
So in one sense, you know that we can re-energise the skills providers in a challenged small towns,

419
00:46:42,490 --> 00:46:47,830
but without the vibrant economy, you'll be pushing things uphill.

420
00:46:47,830 --> 00:46:50,530
Which leads me to my second anecdote and then my general point.

421
00:46:50,530 --> 00:46:58,930
Alison, you told me to read an absolutely fabulous book about Janesville in southern Wisconsin, and it is fantastic.

422
00:46:58,930 --> 00:47:03,880
And the story in Janesville is that the local food fight plant closes in 2007.

423
00:47:03,880 --> 00:47:08,350
At the time of the crash, the federal and state governments do everything right.

424
00:47:08,350 --> 00:47:14,500
They are pouring money to skills and training, and the book traces the trajectories of families,

425
00:47:14,500 --> 00:47:24,070
and the investment in skills has almost zero effect because there is no way for the skills to be used.

426
00:47:24,070 --> 00:47:26,920
But I think the demand does not come from the local employers.

427
00:47:26,920 --> 00:47:32,290
It comes from from, you know, from some big institutions that want to do well by people.

428
00:47:32,290 --> 00:47:34,280
Absolutely. Absolutely.

429
00:47:34,280 --> 00:47:42,040
So, so, so so there's something around skills supply, but there's something bigger or as big about the way local local economies work.

430
00:47:42,040 --> 00:47:46,010
How do you solve that problem? Well, you might have said you can't solve it.

431
00:47:46,010 --> 00:47:50,380
How do you reduce the problem? I think you have to get small institutions to pool risk.

432
00:47:50,380 --> 00:47:54,850
So it's collaboration. It's about shared training is about shared update.

433
00:47:54,850 --> 00:48:02,320
So that collaborative course development is gearing the system to accommodate the problem that you've got in those institutions.

434
00:48:02,320 --> 00:48:07,600
I think that's very interesting. And I think that's right. Yes, I did indeed tell you to to to to read that book.

435
00:48:07,600 --> 00:48:11,740
It's very, very depressing and amazingly insightful.

436
00:48:11,740 --> 00:48:15,530
I believe they just just this brilliant, brilliant analysis.

437
00:48:15,530 --> 00:48:21,220
But I think you're right, and it comes back to the point that I was making at the beginning anyway, which, you know, I don't want.

438
00:48:21,220 --> 00:48:29,110
I don't want to idealise. But but I didn't grow up in a village of 500 people that I grew up in the small town of 17000.

439
00:48:29,110 --> 00:48:35,450
And, you know, when I was a child to be know the were.

440
00:48:35,450 --> 00:48:44,490
There were lots more businesses and lots more sort of locally focussed employers, and they were.

441
00:48:44,490 --> 00:48:48,720
Very involved with the local tech, I mean, they were having I started working on skills,

442
00:48:48,720 --> 00:48:55,080
I kind of went to cross-examine my parents said, you know, by remembering this right?

443
00:48:55,080 --> 00:49:02,070
So how and I think this is also about risk sharing. Of course, there's a real risk sharing element that this was this was how they grew up.

444
00:49:02,070 --> 00:49:07,410
They grew up in a shared environments for training above all apprentices in those days.

445
00:49:07,410 --> 00:49:12,600
But but but generally, how? How might we recreate that?

446
00:49:12,600 --> 00:49:19,920
I mean, because that doesn't take away what you were talking about in which is the need to to share what is going on in the outside world.

447
00:49:19,920 --> 00:49:28,170
But how how might we try to to to actually recreate that it will transform the economy,

448
00:49:28,170 --> 00:49:34,710
but at least it will stop us simply pouring money from London or indeed from West

449
00:49:34,710 --> 00:49:42,230
Midlands Combined Authority into what somebody thinks might be a good idea.

450
00:49:42,230 --> 00:49:48,440
I mean, I don't think I mean, for us, you can't go, so I've got of it.

451
00:49:48,440 --> 00:49:55,070
Yeah. So if I were looking to sell practical, offer practical ideas to government,

452
00:49:55,070 --> 00:50:00,230
here's one that I think might be worthwhile, might be worth exploring and involve spending a bit of money.

453
00:50:00,230 --> 00:50:05,950
There are about 400 colleges in England.

454
00:50:05,950 --> 00:50:08,500
Slightly so it's all up now.

455
00:50:08,500 --> 00:50:18,730
So what I would do would be to create a fund of about 200 million, 200 million, what if you shared it and evenly give each about half a million?

456
00:50:18,730 --> 00:50:26,140
But I wouldn't share it has to the I'd make it forbidding. I'd say that it's for developing local skills strategies.

457
00:50:26,140 --> 00:50:28,720
Local skills offers lot strategies,

458
00:50:28,720 --> 00:50:35,290
the rules for bidding in that you have to collaborate with other colleges and you have to collaborate with local university.

459
00:50:35,290 --> 00:50:37,180
And I think that there is still a lot of money,

460
00:50:37,180 --> 00:50:48,400
but that would begin to shift the architecture into slightly more permeable institutions and you begin to get into institutional collaboration.

461
00:50:48,400 --> 00:50:53,560
And I think that, you know, we've learnt that that that sort of thing releases quite a lot of innovation

462
00:50:53,560 --> 00:50:58,420
would wouldn't solve the problems that you've put up on the slides on its own.

463
00:50:58,420 --> 00:51:02,140
No, it wouldn't wouldn't get institutions working differently.

464
00:51:02,140 --> 00:51:08,940
Yes, it would. So that sorts institutions, what about employers, I have a slightly different view on that,

465
00:51:08,940 --> 00:51:14,130
so I think in this day and age that what we're trying to do here,

466
00:51:14,130 --> 00:51:21,340
what we're trying to get young people and I'm very privileged, I do quite about what the prince's trust in this whole thing,

467
00:51:21,340 --> 00:51:28,110
and you get to some one to the most deprived parts of society.

468
00:51:28,110 --> 00:51:32,670
And if you can get people skills en masse, then then I think that is the way forward.

469
00:51:32,670 --> 00:51:40,920
And when I was growing up in the open university, it was like state of the art and I would try and do as much as I could online.

470
00:51:40,920 --> 00:51:46,650
And I would do that because I think you can spread the knowledge out much wider and know

471
00:51:46,650 --> 00:51:52,420
that that's great to a point if you're doing practical work training to be an electrician.

472
00:51:52,420 --> 00:51:57,060
Yeah, not so easy, but you can do a video with technology services.

473
00:51:57,060 --> 00:52:02,490
Excellent. But I would definitely try and do online. Now that raises all sorts of questions as well.

474
00:52:02,490 --> 00:52:06,780
That's OK. If you if you if you're connected at home, if you've got a computer, et cetera.

475
00:52:06,780 --> 00:52:15,450
And the phone says we don't have computers, but I think I'd be able to put the money into the technology and get people access to this this

476
00:52:15,450 --> 00:52:21,390
way because there are there are there are thousands of people who are getting left behind.

477
00:52:21,390 --> 00:52:26,490
And if if that doesn't concern you, I think it should. I worry about people getting left behind.

478
00:52:26,490 --> 00:52:32,280
I worry about who I'm going to say. I think is right, but in a slightly different way.

479
00:52:32,280 --> 00:52:37,200
I'm suggesting and I get to I think that is to introduce this point.

480
00:52:37,200 --> 00:52:42,780
So I love blocked during lockdown. And so what did I do?

481
00:52:42,780 --> 00:52:45,420
I googled. I found a video.

482
00:52:45,420 --> 00:52:54,120
I sent my laptop next to the lavatory and steps freeze, framing the video that was telling me how to fix the blockage on my traits.

483
00:52:54,120 --> 00:53:00,900
And I sorted it. And that that was a skill I was developing as I needed to develop.

484
00:53:00,900 --> 00:53:06,960
And I think that works for adults. The Open University is fabulous.

485
00:53:06,960 --> 00:53:17,210
It never built up a clientele, 18 year olds, so I'm with them on technology for post experience, for experienced workers, for later life.

486
00:53:17,210 --> 00:53:21,510
Ironically, I think there's something about socialisation of that community,

487
00:53:21,510 --> 00:53:29,670
which is that the evidence seems to me to suggest that you need face to face provision with younger people.

488
00:53:29,670 --> 00:53:35,940
We have that. But that's not just building up a second class because I think there's another point of not touched on yet is we are

489
00:53:35,940 --> 00:53:43,260
talking about people here or generalising that all of these people want their education and they want to develop.

490
00:53:43,260 --> 00:53:48,690
There are no huge part of the population who are disengaged, shall we say.

491
00:53:48,690 --> 00:53:56,730
That's what I do is I'm being polite but disengaged. And it's how we get those huge amounts of talent out there who are poor for a reason.

492
00:53:56,730 --> 00:54:04,980
Maybe their upbringing, it might be their home life, et cetera, have have fallen out of of of the come off the tracks a little bit,

493
00:54:04,980 --> 00:54:10,170
and we should really try and get these people back on track and everyone can.

494
00:54:10,170 --> 00:54:16,800
We are going to shoot for the stars past. But there's a lot of I call latent talent and we need to get back in.

495
00:54:16,800 --> 00:54:25,710
And there's there's one population. I think as an organisation, we failed and I take this personally because I'm quite heavily involved in it.

496
00:54:25,710 --> 00:54:27,990
And that's the disabled community.

497
00:54:27,990 --> 00:54:33,510
A lot of the disabled community do not work because it's just too difficult to get these people into work, et cetera.

498
00:54:33,510 --> 00:54:39,540
They are very talented people, but for whatever reason, as a society, we have not been that great.

499
00:54:39,540 --> 00:54:46,510
Look at Egypt and Egypt, bring the disabled people in. So we've got a lot of talented people who we need to bring in, and I'm using one.

500
00:54:46,510 --> 00:54:52,890
It's maybe a good example. It's maybe a bad example, but don't think everyone's bursting at the seams to get that.

501
00:54:52,890 --> 00:54:56,780
We need to generate this enthusiasm and this we will.

502
00:54:56,780 --> 00:55:02,550
If you want to be successful and successes in everyone's own mind.

503
00:55:02,550 --> 00:55:10,030
It is my way. I think it's what they think. But just to get them back on track and give them a job, make sure they understand money.

504
00:55:10,030 --> 00:55:13,710
And I might be off peace, but I might as well. I would.

505
00:55:13,710 --> 00:55:17,790
I would suggest that part of that goes back to the curriculum at school.

506
00:55:17,790 --> 00:55:23,250
We do not teach life skills at school. We've been pushing the government for some time.

507
00:55:23,250 --> 00:55:30,560
I think I think the curriculum could change a little bit. I've got four children, so I get a mortgage that.

508
00:55:30,560 --> 00:55:32,600
Right. What about a basic level here?

509
00:55:32,600 --> 00:55:37,220
So we've got to educate people on how do you get them or how do you get life insurance, how do you how do you do it?

510
00:55:37,220 --> 00:55:41,510
Will all these things are just life skills that we don't teach?

511
00:55:41,510 --> 00:55:49,730
OK, I suppose I'd like to go back to the place issue, though, because this is, after all, what we are trying to focus on.

512
00:55:49,730 --> 00:55:53,510
And I'd like to come back to this, this issue of.

513
00:55:53,510 --> 00:55:59,810
So you have you have a town with which will still have school in place when you know you're right.

514
00:55:59,810 --> 00:56:02,450
A variety of reasons. The high street probably doesn't bustle.

515
00:56:02,450 --> 00:56:11,330
It doesn't have the same, but it does have employers, you know, it has employers and some of those could become considerably more productive.

516
00:56:11,330 --> 00:56:17,060
They could become bigger. They could grow. And for them, there is a real challenge.

517
00:56:17,060 --> 00:56:30,030
And you know, we I think I had some good ideas about large industries, large businesses sharing up to date training stuff and some good ideas about.

518
00:56:30,030 --> 00:56:39,120
Institutional collaboration, but I want to really come back to this because it also relates to the very depressing statistic I'd put up,

519
00:56:39,120 --> 00:56:47,850
which is from a variety of of US government sources, which is that on the whole, British employers do not spend much on training.

520
00:56:47,850 --> 00:56:53,810
And I think your point about risk sharing was actually absolutely right.

521
00:56:53,810 --> 00:56:59,760
The only way you sort of generate this really on a large scale, is by actually creating a different environment,

522
00:56:59,760 --> 00:57:06,990
an environment in which you bring employers together more actively and give them

523
00:57:06,990 --> 00:57:11,220
some reason to come together more actively in a way which sparks people off.

524
00:57:11,220 --> 00:57:16,800
Which means that you discover that actually you might want to take an apprentice in a given area,

525
00:57:16,800 --> 00:57:23,400
which means that the local college would actually be able to have enough of them to put on a course because it would actually be economically viable,

526
00:57:23,400 --> 00:57:31,770
or that several of them actually can see a way of wanting to make contact with, for example, just this down the road and has some regular stuff.

527
00:57:31,770 --> 00:57:40,260
How do you actually get that going? And it does seem to me that the colleges have to be somewhere in the centre of it.

528
00:57:40,260 --> 00:57:48,180
I mean, we do have this in this inherited institutional framework. And how might we do that?

529
00:57:48,180 --> 00:57:52,800
Because I think you're you're your bidding idea will get some good institutional stuff,

530
00:57:52,800 --> 00:58:01,560
but it's actually more sort of how how in a way do we change the the the incentives, the risk sharing, the behaviour more generally?

531
00:58:01,560 --> 00:58:06,210
I didn't give you warning of this, and since I don't have the answer,

532
00:58:06,210 --> 00:58:11,610
but I would like to suggest in the levelling up context that if we could do that again,

533
00:58:11,610 --> 00:58:21,150
if we could create the sorts of incentives that brought businesses together in the first place to create and fund these institutions,

534
00:58:21,150 --> 00:58:30,780
we would actually, on the skills side, be making a major step forward and we wouldn't be falling into the trap that Ford Motor Company did.

535
00:58:30,780 --> 00:58:34,560
And it was the best of intentions of sort of offering people training only.

536
00:58:34,560 --> 00:58:44,170
It was just training sort of in a vacuum. Yes. I mean, look, I'm I'm the short answer to your question is, I don't know.

537
00:58:44,170 --> 00:58:52,560
And I think the longer answer.

538
00:58:52,560 --> 00:58:58,550
Would go something like this. I'd buy your historical analysis.

539
00:58:58,550 --> 00:59:03,030
I don't disagree with much of any of it.

540
00:59:03,030 --> 00:59:11,290
The question is whether we are trying to recreate something which we have lost or whether we need to create something which which is new.

541
00:59:11,290 --> 00:59:16,750
And I think in that sense, the historical says, might might slightly mislead us.

542
00:59:16,750 --> 00:59:21,120
That world has probably gone so.

543
00:59:21,120 --> 00:59:24,090
So something different needs to happen.

544
00:59:24,090 --> 00:59:34,680
It is true that UK employers invest, do not invest in training that cut employees in other countries, do invest more in training.

545
00:59:34,680 --> 00:59:43,980
And I have never entirely understood that I used tax compulsion, tax credits or whether it's something that is cultural, culturally different.

546
00:59:43,980 --> 00:59:51,420
I don't know the answer to that. And I'd like to understand it because it points to a salt, salt, salt, sort of.

547
00:59:51,420 --> 00:59:58,320
I do think that there is a slight tendency in this to somewhat over generalise about skills.

548
00:59:58,320 --> 01:00:04,530
Skills can be very specific skills. It's whether it's me fixing my laboratory or your children getting a mortgage.

549
01:00:04,530 --> 01:00:09,510
You know they are. They are quite specific and they look different in different contexts.

550
01:00:09,510 --> 01:00:14,490
And that's why I do come back to energise the local initiative.

551
01:00:14,490 --> 01:00:18,720
I did make a mistake early when I talked about incentivising colleges.

552
01:00:18,720 --> 01:00:21,960
I should have said employers as well. I see you've got to engage that.

553
01:00:21,960 --> 01:00:26,910
And that was that was that was an oversight. But I think you can then begin to move things.

554
01:00:26,910 --> 01:00:34,680
And the most successful bits of the global economy are those which have found specialist niches.

555
01:00:34,680 --> 01:00:40,650
So we can all talk about technology around Boston or technology in Silicon Valley.

556
01:00:40,650 --> 01:00:48,660
But there's absolutely no reason why you couldn't see a niche developing different niche around Grimsby or around Great Yarmouth.

557
01:00:48,660 --> 01:00:56,190
What would that be? I don't know. Do I think that the employers and skills providers would have a better place to me?

558
01:00:56,190 --> 01:01:03,170
Yes, I do. If. Just so I'm.

559
01:01:03,170 --> 01:01:12,930
Give them a view, and an education for me is all about passing knowledge from one to another and all across the land.

560
01:01:12,930 --> 01:01:19,450
You've got schools, colleges, so you've got a facility to do that.

561
01:01:19,450 --> 01:01:26,980
If I've ever asked anyone for help on educational coaching, I don't I don't think anyone's ever said no.

562
01:01:26,980 --> 01:01:36,130
So you've got this massive population of either newly retired or an hour at a time and people who are highly skilled,

563
01:01:36,130 --> 01:01:42,400
fanny, well educated, who are only too happy to pass that education on to others.

564
01:01:42,400 --> 01:01:45,730
There's something there, but latent talent available, especially in some of the smaller,

565
01:01:45,730 --> 01:01:56,530
more rural areas where by by opening up some of these other facilities, I'm sure people would share that knowledge base as very unstructured.

566
01:01:56,530 --> 01:02:03,430
So it's maybe not helpful. But if somebody asked me to help I go to school and an afternoon or an evening,

567
01:02:03,430 --> 01:02:07,840
I would be only too happy to go and do that to pass on what knowledge I've got to others.

568
01:02:07,840 --> 01:02:15,010
And that's good back to this whole sharing part, which I think the pandemic has given us a real position, right?

569
01:02:15,010 --> 01:02:18,910
And I think climate will just really accelerate that. Yeah.

570
01:02:18,910 --> 01:02:27,880
And so we as a country, we could we could really think about how we open up this amazing talent pool we've got for the greater good for all.

571
01:02:27,880 --> 01:02:32,340
It would take some organising, but with right will, there has to be a way.

572
01:02:32,340 --> 01:02:40,390
A final question before I ask you this physically and virtually,

573
01:02:40,390 --> 01:02:45,970
we've been talking about the particularly I have been talking about the fact that we sort of move from one

574
01:02:45,970 --> 01:02:55,390
kind of society to another and that our system has in some cases adapted extremely well on and others has,

575
01:02:55,390 --> 01:02:59,770
has, has not. And and so we have these particular shortages.

576
01:02:59,770 --> 01:03:07,570
And we also are struggling to keep up with things that that move very fast.

577
01:03:07,570 --> 01:03:13,610
If you were, for example, maybe I ask you.

578
01:03:13,610 --> 01:03:18,620
Chris Veale tells us what, but if he was sort of thinking about, you know, 20 years from now,

579
01:03:18,620 --> 01:03:29,390
if I want to sort of stop worrying now about where I'm pretty sure we're going to have too little capacity apart from climate?

580
01:03:29,390 --> 01:03:33,570
Yeah, why would you put your money knowing that you will be wrong in the detail?

581
01:03:33,570 --> 01:03:37,610
Where would you put your money in the broad?

582
01:03:37,610 --> 01:03:45,050
Well, I know you said, apart from climate, but I do think that that's going to become an overwhelming issue,

583
01:03:45,050 --> 01:03:48,860
which is going to permeate almost all of the parts of the globe.

584
01:03:48,860 --> 01:03:57,340
There's not going to be a thing around climate. It is the water in which we're going to be swimming for the rest of my life.

585
01:03:57,340 --> 01:03:59,690
So I wouldn't accept climate.

586
01:03:59,690 --> 01:04:14,030
I think digital where it so it's it's if we just think about the pace of change in digital technologies over the last 20 years.

587
01:04:14,030 --> 01:04:21,830
You know, look ahead if it is very, very difficult to see that.

588
01:04:21,830 --> 01:04:27,770
And that also, I think becomes Zambians know artificial intelligence, which I'm putting under my heading of digital,

589
01:04:27,770 --> 01:04:34,850
is going to move increasingly through finance, through manufacturing.

590
01:04:34,850 --> 01:04:39,860
So those all those are probably two, two massive ones.

591
01:04:39,860 --> 01:04:45,530
I think there's a really big question around the the issues that will flow from an

592
01:04:45,530 --> 01:04:50,990
ageing society and it is possible to think about that in terms of social care.

593
01:04:50,990 --> 01:04:59,780
But I think as well this whole sets of issues around design and delivery for ageing societies that as we get older,

594
01:04:59,780 --> 01:05:08,980
if we want to maintain an independent system. So for me, the big drivers are going to be climate, digital and ageing.

595
01:05:08,980 --> 01:05:16,090
Yes. I mean, I'm like, where would you put your bets? My heart tells me manufacturing, because as a country, you have to make things here.

596
01:05:16,090 --> 01:05:20,000
You have to make things that I love a production line and it comes off the end.

597
01:05:20,000 --> 01:05:24,950
However, I'm a great believer in keeping these debates as simple as we can.

598
01:05:24,950 --> 01:05:32,460
So what do we need? Maybe if you think about just what you need to get through life, you need food.

599
01:05:32,460 --> 01:05:39,690
You need help. So I completely agree with that because it's an ageing population, so you need help and you need a roof over your head.

600
01:05:39,690 --> 01:05:43,890
We live on an island. There's never going to be enough homes in the UK.

601
01:05:43,890 --> 01:05:49,080
You've got 28 million homes are going to need to be retrofitted before 2050.

602
01:05:49,080 --> 01:05:58,020
So if I can buy a reincarnated now, I'd be a heat pump manufacturer or I'd be a plumber or an electrician because it's all going to have to get done.

603
01:05:58,020 --> 01:06:01,560
We are the combustion engines at the end of its natural life.

604
01:06:01,560 --> 01:06:06,120
You are going to be driving electric cars, whether you like or not. Personally, I quite like it.

605
01:06:06,120 --> 01:06:13,260
I don't have one yet, but I will get one. But you need an infrastructure for that, so I'd be building the infrastructure.

606
01:06:13,260 --> 01:06:15,360
And then the other thing you've got to think about is power.

607
01:06:15,360 --> 01:06:21,030
And I know it would be we don't want to talk about climate, but the whole axis of power is changing.

608
01:06:21,030 --> 01:06:23,400
If you if you think about aviation,

609
01:06:23,400 --> 01:06:30,510
sustainable aviation fuel can now be manufactured with no go to scale it because people don't want to give up flying,

610
01:06:30,510 --> 01:06:38,610
but they don't want to pollute the planet. So I so I just think power is going to be a massive change over the next two years, hydrogen,

611
01:06:38,610 --> 01:06:47,170
etc. And I think it's exciting because it's going to be quite demanding on resources as well as as well, but certainly also a big one as well.

612
01:06:47,170 --> 01:06:55,710
Now the thing I would sort of note is that there's a couple of cases where what we're talking about is higher development typically for that.

613
01:06:55,710 --> 01:07:03,240
But you know, honestly, what it also says is that a lot of that is stuff you do everywhere.

614
01:07:03,240 --> 01:07:11,820
Which I think, again, comes back to this question of how we think about motivating people,

615
01:07:11,820 --> 01:07:20,220
make it easier for them to to stay because the vast bulk of jobs related to this are actually going to be everywhere in the country.

616
01:07:20,220 --> 01:07:24,210
And I mean, I I'm actually also quite keen on manufacturing.

617
01:07:24,210 --> 01:07:37,080
Just never, ever, ever is going to employ many people again. It just isn't my privilege as being on the stage.

618
01:07:37,080 --> 01:07:42,540
We've got an audience here and an audience online. It's just about time to time.

619
01:07:42,540 --> 01:07:48,930
So we just I think we have just about time to open up to questions.

620
01:07:48,930 --> 01:07:58,080
Online questions are perfectly fine. I'm going to abuse my position on stage to ask the first question, really.

621
01:07:58,080 --> 01:08:03,750
And I want to start with a little anecdote about myself because it picks up an enormous saying

622
01:08:03,750 --> 01:08:10,500
about a vast pool of people who are willing to provide advice and mentoring the young people.

623
01:08:10,500 --> 01:08:14,940
And I was I love my parents.

624
01:08:14,940 --> 01:08:26,700
Both left school at the age of 12, so I was the first generation of getting a chance to go to university from Sheffield.

625
01:08:26,700 --> 01:08:34,840
So I was very much a part of a pioneer of trying to,

626
01:08:34,840 --> 01:08:43,610
and I reached a point where I had a terribly important decision to take and I knew I wasn't equipped to take it.

627
01:08:43,610 --> 01:08:54,450
And so I needed somebody who was a middle class person who could give me advice, and I thought, Who could I ask?

628
01:08:54,450 --> 01:08:59,310
And I could think of only one middle class person that I interacted with regularly.

629
01:08:59,310 --> 01:09:09,940
And that was my dentist. And so I asked my dentist for mentoring advice, and I have to say he was completely useless.

630
01:09:09,940 --> 01:09:18,170
So we can do better in by putting in people who are a little bit better equipped to mentor,

631
01:09:18,170 --> 01:09:24,140
but I think there's still a huge gulf in that mentoring role.

632
01:09:24,140 --> 01:09:32,180
And then I wanted to draw both of you because both of you were pioneers in different ways.

633
01:09:32,180 --> 01:09:45,800
Chris has pioneered the the the the use of a university to actually train people in the range of locally pertinent skills and engage with local firms.

634
01:09:45,800 --> 01:09:54,230
And you even have pioneered recruitment in a provincial city.

635
01:09:54,230 --> 01:10:01,730
And both of you, as far as I can see, have learnt by to an extent a process of trial and error.

636
01:10:01,730 --> 01:10:12,410
And that seems to me a perfectly acceptable way to learn is get going and try things, and not everything will work for you.

637
01:10:12,410 --> 01:10:17,150
It would just, you learn by doing. And there hasn't been enough doing.

638
01:10:17,150 --> 01:10:26,490
There's been a the Obama problem of a rolling seminar discussing policy, but not enough actually doing things to learn from from experiment.

639
01:10:26,490 --> 01:10:31,010
And finally, we could learn from success.

640
01:10:31,010 --> 01:10:43,820
And the idea that there's no success outside London is very clearly false even gave the example of where do they go to for it skills?

641
01:10:43,820 --> 01:10:49,500
Sheffield why? Because Sheffield has got eight hundred IT firms.

642
01:10:49,500 --> 01:11:03,710
It's a major I.T. cluster, and so there are enormous clusters of new schools all around the country, but unrecognised.

643
01:11:03,710 --> 01:11:08,170
And so one. Learn from that.

644
01:11:08,170 --> 01:11:15,830
Cluster in Sheffield. There may be many other clusters that can be harnessed and the new unrecognised.

645
01:11:15,830 --> 01:11:21,590
And finally, we can learn from success in colleges of further education.

646
01:11:21,590 --> 01:11:26,700
Chris said there are 400 of them. Barnsley College.

647
01:11:26,700 --> 01:11:33,550
Barnsley College is in the top 10. Nationally.

648
01:11:33,550 --> 01:11:39,880
As a distinctive thing about Barnsley College is the Barnsley doesn't have a university,

649
01:11:39,880 --> 01:11:52,090
and so the local government really has focussed on making Barnsley College good because they now have the choice and it seems to have worked.

650
01:11:52,090 --> 01:12:01,180
So could we learn from the success of Barnsley College in for the other three hundred nineteen that are not as good?

651
01:12:01,180 --> 01:12:08,710
And so this is just kind of the whole thing of.

652
01:12:08,710 --> 01:12:19,780
I think what I'd like to do is take two or three questions, as well as what is following up on that and the fact that both he and Sandra.

653
01:12:19,780 --> 01:12:27,280
Hold on. We need to like say, OK, thank you for the very stimulating discussions this evening.

654
01:12:27,280 --> 01:12:32,080
And it raised many questions in my mind. I'll just ask one.

655
01:12:32,080 --> 01:12:39,580
There was a lot of discussion about changes in the workforce, how fast things change in view of how fast things change.

656
01:12:39,580 --> 01:12:44,490
What does the panel think about the post-16 curriculum?

657
01:12:44,490 --> 01:12:48,490
Do you feel it's it's it's narrow in England relative to other countries?

658
01:12:48,490 --> 01:12:53,720
And how would you change that? I mean, is that something for vocational or is it something for academic as well?

659
01:12:53,720 --> 01:12:59,620
And the same question about apprenticeships or apprenticeships in England to narrow.

660
01:12:59,620 --> 01:13:03,400
Let's end. But that as well, I would like to take it there and there.

661
01:13:03,400 --> 01:13:08,550
And then once we had those three questions plus Paul, then thank you very much.

662
01:13:08,550 --> 01:13:15,430
I'm it's impossible to argue with the data that Baroness presented regarding the system being out of kilter,

663
01:13:15,430 --> 01:13:18,970
obviously, and the need for domestic upskilling in some form.

664
01:13:18,970 --> 01:13:25,000
But I want to know with respect to this idea of do we just want to recreate the past or should we be looking?

665
01:13:25,000 --> 01:13:28,900
Should we be looking to a new future with with that thought in mind,

666
01:13:28,900 --> 01:13:38,560
I'm wondering with your respective hats on to what extent you all think immigration should play a larger part in satisfying long term,

667
01:13:38,560 --> 01:13:41,440
in particular labour market demand?

668
01:13:41,440 --> 01:13:50,260
I'm mindful of the fact that immigration keeps being presented as a veiled option rather than an immutable necessity, perhaps.

669
01:13:50,260 --> 01:13:54,940
So I'm wondering whether immigration is part of the solution here, if indeed it's the case that as in Janesville,

670
01:13:54,940 --> 01:14:04,250
I think it was all the upskilling in the world in a town might not be enough to actually stimulate local economies.

671
01:14:04,250 --> 01:14:09,510
And it's one of those. Hello.

672
01:14:09,510 --> 01:14:13,350
My question has got to do with unused apprenticeship levy.

673
01:14:13,350 --> 01:14:17,640
I think there's about a billion that companies are not able to use for their own staff.

674
01:14:17,640 --> 01:14:21,180
Does anyone know what happens to that money?

675
01:14:21,180 --> 01:14:30,570
Because you see the decline in provision for further education, you're wondering why apprenticeship levy this unused is not being used for that.

676
01:14:30,570 --> 01:14:34,110
I can tell you that that's a specific empirical question.

677
01:14:34,110 --> 01:14:42,480
And I felt so that like, yeah, let's start by answering that one that wasn't going to huge detail.

678
01:14:42,480 --> 01:14:52,890
The levy is basically it is really a levy. It's a tax, it's a tax on large companies and it goes into it goes into the into the Treasury.

679
01:14:52,890 --> 01:14:56,670
And the amount that is not used by companies,

680
01:14:56,670 --> 01:15:01,530
which has been going down is then goes goes into the Treasury pot and then makes some

681
01:15:01,530 --> 01:15:08,130
allocation to pay for apprenticeship training and SMEs in small and medium firms.

682
01:15:08,130 --> 01:15:13,710
You're right that they said that there is over the last few years, it hasn't all been spent.

683
01:15:13,710 --> 01:15:18,630
You know, it's it's a slightly complicated system because basically it's described as a levy.

684
01:15:18,630 --> 01:15:23,100
It's really a tax, but you don't pay it if you actually use it.

685
01:15:23,100 --> 01:15:25,050
Tried an apprentice.

686
01:15:25,050 --> 01:15:32,550
The treasurer would say that they worked on predictions and that they intended you that it was expected that they would use it all.

687
01:15:32,550 --> 01:15:39,870
But the amount that is unspent has that is unspent has been declining as the amount is spent by

688
01:15:39,870 --> 01:15:46,950
levy payers because those are one of the reasons that apprenticeship numbers have fallen well.

689
01:15:46,950 --> 01:15:52,380
There are two major reasons why include one not so good numbers fell because there

690
01:15:52,380 --> 01:15:57,540
was a big apprenticeship reform and the government stop supporting very short,

691
01:15:57,540 --> 01:16:01,980
very low quality apprenticeships a few years ago. So that brought the numbers down.

692
01:16:01,980 --> 01:16:07,350
But the other problem, which I think is an interesting one, which I don't have an answer,

693
01:16:07,350 --> 01:16:16,080
is that the levy payers in particular have been tending to increase the the level of the apprentices that they take on.

694
01:16:16,080 --> 01:16:26,760
They will often there are more and more high level apprentices, and they cost more because it goes on for long that large number of years.

695
01:16:26,760 --> 01:16:32,490
So the amount of the levy that has been unpaid has actually been falling.

696
01:16:32,490 --> 01:16:40,170
And so far Treasury has not, as has continued to treat it as though it was a sort of hypothecated pot.

697
01:16:40,170 --> 01:16:46,950
So what happens is that if they don't chop it up over and above the levy because they work on the basis that that pays for everything,

698
01:16:46,950 --> 01:16:54,360
then then that's it. But there is, alas, not a nice pot sitting of a billion pounds, which one could put out.

699
01:16:54,360 --> 01:17:01,920
It's so it's it runs into all the usual fights over mainstream government expenditure, alas.

700
01:17:01,920 --> 01:17:08,700
So I'm not what I can give you a straight answer of a couple of words that I'm really sorry, even even just listening.

701
01:17:08,700 --> 01:17:17,760
How complicated a response that is. Yes, I know it's OK is tells you everything I would tell you about the cost of it.

702
01:17:17,760 --> 01:17:25,080
I think he needs an overhaul. I don't think it's really good value for money because it's not going to the heart of the problem.

703
01:17:25,080 --> 01:17:28,830
The opening words Well, it's a complicated system. It's a complicated system.

704
01:17:28,830 --> 01:17:33,900
What we need is straightforward. Get people into apprenticeships, put the money behind it.

705
01:17:33,900 --> 01:17:39,480
We'd be delighted to put the money behind it rather than trying to fudge it, which is roughly what we're doing.

706
01:17:39,480 --> 01:17:49,000
What I want is the best way. I think it needs an overhaul. The absolutely the answer, the answer, answer, sort of let's do it.

707
01:17:49,000 --> 01:17:54,760
When everything goes on. On the other questions and film responses before, do you want to go first?

708
01:17:54,760 --> 01:17:58,540
OK, I'll rattle through them quickly. Sandra starts it off of speed of change.

709
01:17:58,540 --> 01:18:00,880
The speed of change is incredible.

710
01:18:00,880 --> 01:18:09,400
Just like I worry that will light people up and I hire lots of young smart people to keep me up to date with technology.

711
01:18:09,400 --> 01:18:14,680
I am a dangerous amateur on its own clean technology. I'm really trying to self educate myself.

712
01:18:14,680 --> 01:18:19,640
Do you think the education system is too narrow? Yeah.

713
01:18:19,640 --> 01:18:26,520
The more I see it now and the closer I get to, I think it can just do with expanding a little bit.

714
01:18:26,520 --> 01:18:31,420
But I think it's really difficult and I don't have the answer. Do I think apprenticeships up to now?

715
01:18:31,420 --> 01:18:35,560
No. I think they're very wide and very varied. I just think we should use it more.

716
01:18:35,560 --> 01:18:43,780
And that was a good introduction. Now, immigration. I'm I'm an open capitalist economy guy.

717
01:18:43,780 --> 01:18:48,820
You know, I would I would have the doors open. I think you've got to be careful with some of the rules.

718
01:18:48,820 --> 01:18:59,570
It's and I get all that. But if you want a growing economy, I think I think you've got to be more open than perhaps we are at the.

719
01:18:59,570 --> 01:19:06,360
Think of a them. Emerging markets are going to agree, I absolutely agree on immigration.

720
01:19:06,360 --> 01:19:13,590
My reading of the data is that there's very little evidence that immigration depressed demand for scale or demand or wages.

721
01:19:13,590 --> 01:19:16,870
What it tended to do is to try to grow the economy.

722
01:19:16,870 --> 01:19:25,050
Now the caveats on this is that there may be particular geographical locations where that was experienced differently,

723
01:19:25,050 --> 01:19:30,300
but from a national perspective, I'm with you on that.

724
01:19:30,300 --> 01:19:35,970
On Page 16, Alison, I have had to engage exchanges on ideas before.

725
01:19:35,970 --> 01:19:44,280
There is some path dependency and crudely words to remember about post-16 education in countries as Byler constructed as a

726
01:19:44,280 --> 01:19:51,390
basis for university entry and the system that we've got means that we can have three year degrees of four year degrees.

727
01:19:51,390 --> 01:20:00,360
I think that the post-16 curriculum is too narrow. It probably does need to be subject based on the disagreement with that, but it is too narrow.

728
01:20:00,360 --> 01:20:04,440
It forces early specialisation, it closes down choices.

729
01:20:04,440 --> 01:20:15,060
I you know where I sit worried that T levels are probably going to reinforce trum lining rather than okay, opening up choice.

730
01:20:15,060 --> 01:20:26,250
And that feels to me to be a bad thing is not the way most of the rest of the world is going, and I don't think we've picked your questions.

731
01:20:26,250 --> 01:20:38,550
There's an interesting question about if colleges and what they do in areas where they are the sole provider of of post-16 training.

732
01:20:38,550 --> 01:20:45,870
And you're right. And the interesting question is this do we think I think I'm reasonably conservative about this?

733
01:20:45,870 --> 01:20:51,810
Do we think that we've basically got institutional structure that could deliver if it was incentivised properly?

734
01:20:51,810 --> 01:20:57,840
I think I'll quit because I think the answer might be yes. Or do we think that we need some new types of institution?

735
01:20:57,840 --> 01:21:09,670
I think that we've proved we got an institutional structure which is not appropriately incentivised, but is a broadly appropriate structure.

736
01:21:09,670 --> 01:21:16,820
We had some more questions that those gentlemen can we take some from online? You taking some from the Aether, right?

737
01:21:16,820 --> 01:21:21,850
Okay, so there's quite a few that. And Andy asks,

738
01:21:21,850 --> 01:21:33,270
how do we begin to address the adult skills issue as 80 per cent of the UK workforce in 2013 are already behind as in post education and upskilling?

739
01:21:33,270 --> 01:21:40,380
And someone an applicant is asked that the panel have any suggestions on what we can do to innovate online learning,

740
01:21:40,380 --> 01:21:47,230
given that most of the working population is burned out from statutory regulated learning.

741
01:21:47,230 --> 01:21:58,650
And the last one, what do you think about the effect of AI on the future available jobs and impact on training providers and trainees?

742
01:21:58,650 --> 01:22:05,040
You could be like you can say, OK, these are all extremely good questions, I'm trying, I think I'll take it in reverse.

743
01:22:05,040 --> 01:22:15,300
I think the air question is a really tough one and it falls into the category that can we predict future skills with certainty?

744
01:22:15,300 --> 01:22:21,630
And I'm not sure we can say what to what do I think is going to be the long term impact of A.I.?

745
01:22:21,630 --> 01:22:30,240
I have no real idea. And I think this is a sort of grope forward, establish broad principles rather than specifics.

746
01:22:30,240 --> 01:22:38,370
I think if you try to over predict that you will over and therefore specify that that's not a very helpful answer.

747
01:22:38,370 --> 01:22:46,080
And how to incentivise online learning a lot of lack of something that ends and I thought was absolutely right,

748
01:22:46,080 --> 01:22:50,970
and it's both something that we need to respect, but it's also a challenge.

749
01:22:50,970 --> 01:22:59,350
I think that there's some suppressed demand for upskilling those people who don't necessarily want to.

750
01:22:59,350 --> 01:23:08,380
And we should respect that. But it's also the consequence of the problem that economies are locked into this low skill, low productivity equilibrium.

751
01:23:08,380 --> 01:23:14,440
And unless we can create economic incentives in which and this is the Janesville lesson,

752
01:23:14,440 --> 01:23:20,080
everybody's goal, the hope that the unemployed food workers needed to upskill.

753
01:23:20,080 --> 01:23:30,100
But there was no local demand for them to use those skills, so they became disenchanted, disengaged in many cases of their relationships fall apart.

754
01:23:30,100 --> 01:23:31,310
So really sad story.

755
01:23:31,310 --> 01:23:40,990
So to have to do how to how to encourage innovation online, many people pick up this when they need, when they see the need for it.

756
01:23:40,990 --> 01:23:51,130
Most people are rational actors. Me and my broken laboratory and I know I would generalise it from experience of war in my bathroom.

757
01:23:51,130 --> 01:23:58,420
But but I think in that sense, it is in the demand. We'll be there when there is a need, when there is a need for it.

758
01:23:58,420 --> 01:24:03,040
The age of the adult skills problem, I think, is absolutely right,

759
01:24:03,040 --> 01:24:11,200
and it is that the really people call me for some of the problem that know is the need where many people see there's a gap,

760
01:24:11,200 --> 01:24:20,320
but that it is a much bigger and more challenging problem than the supply of new workers.

761
01:24:20,320 --> 01:24:26,620
We could we can address the supply of new workers with some qualifications reform through some institution incentivization.

762
01:24:26,620 --> 01:24:32,560
But that big chunk of people, most of the people who are going to be in the workforce in twenty twenty eight

763
01:24:32,560 --> 01:24:37,980
are already in the workforce and their jobs are being reconstructed around them.

764
01:24:37,980 --> 01:24:41,900
That's a daily challenge for all of us. I will give you all the time.

765
01:24:41,900 --> 01:24:50,110
I would like to spotlight I for a sake. So I think artificial intelligence in the next ten years or even the next twenty years,

766
01:24:50,110 --> 01:24:55,390
next ten years is going to be significant because we are going to move into a world of hyper

767
01:24:55,390 --> 01:25:01,070
personalisation and everyone wants when it comes to technology are made to measure suit.

768
01:25:01,070 --> 01:25:05,770
So it's just made for you and this is the way it's going to go now.

769
01:25:05,770 --> 01:25:11,110
I worry about that because there's a massive unintended consequences of that as well,

770
01:25:11,110 --> 01:25:16,870
because you may take people out of the economy as much as you take people or bring people into the economy,

771
01:25:16,870 --> 01:25:27,490
and we have to be very aware of that before we go. The reason that is exciting is, is it is just enormous data getting configured in a certain way.

772
01:25:27,490 --> 01:25:33,280
The one area we don't know and I I'm sure there's better brainpower in this room than me,

773
01:25:33,280 --> 01:25:39,580
who maybe do have a good view of this is that what are the future behaviours going to drive?

774
01:25:39,580 --> 01:25:42,010
So if somebody said to me 10 years ago,

775
01:25:42,010 --> 01:25:49,660
delivery only sort of takeaway companies for food were going to be massive and what made them one of the after the I would have laughed.

776
01:25:49,660 --> 01:25:56,650
But customer behaviours have changed. And so the next ten years is us trying to second guess customer behaviours,

777
01:25:56,650 --> 01:26:01,960
and I don't know what they're going to be at the moment, but I'm going to play a huge part of them.

778
01:26:01,960 --> 01:26:09,380
So exciting, but with quite a few worries as well. All right, these.

779
01:26:09,380 --> 01:26:19,300
Time for maybe two more questions. I thank you for this great panel discussion, let so, so much.

780
01:26:19,300 --> 01:26:22,250
I wanted to ask about Steve.

781
01:26:22,250 --> 01:26:31,330
And when we talk about creating jobs for people, it kind of creates a sense of esteem of being at Oxford University creates a steam,

782
01:26:31,330 --> 01:26:40,300
but maybe going to a lack of further education or another university may not create as much as steam, so it creates this disparity within people.

783
01:26:40,300 --> 01:26:48,010
So is wondering how you think about the future of accreditation for different institutions and how people, you know,

784
01:26:48,010 --> 01:26:53,170
the messaging that goes out that if you go to assess and if you go down a session path,

785
01:26:53,170 --> 01:26:59,560
which is not quite clear yet for people that don't go to university, how do you build that in the community?

786
01:26:59,560 --> 01:27:06,710
Because it's not just about the job, it's about what that means to that person and the community that you.

787
01:27:06,710 --> 01:27:11,380
Well, first of all, thank you for using the word this time I was trying to think of the right word.

788
01:27:11,380 --> 01:27:14,890
I think it steams up very good word.

789
01:27:14,890 --> 01:27:21,070
I would use the word pride, and I think a lot of people in small communities have got real pride when I was growing up,

790
01:27:21,070 --> 01:27:25,670
had real pride in my community. You play for the local football team in central Ukraine.

791
01:27:25,670 --> 01:27:34,930
This. How do you energise people is is quite a challenge.

792
01:27:34,930 --> 01:27:39,880
I don't have the answer to how how you do that, but I think it's.

793
01:27:39,880 --> 01:27:47,500
Did I say it's maybe how you brought up where you brought up the environment around you, this caring, loving environment,

794
01:27:47,500 --> 01:27:54,520
et cetera, and I think people who come from that background have got a huge advantage as they go into further education.

795
01:27:54,520 --> 01:27:58,040
I wouldn't underestimate that for a second.

796
01:27:58,040 --> 01:28:05,200
I I'm somebody who I've got to know is a good friend in Manchester who does a huge amount of walks in the community.

797
01:28:05,200 --> 01:28:13,240
I mean, I've been out with him and seeing what it's like on the other side of that, I'm trying to get people energised and pride is so, so difficult.

798
01:28:13,240 --> 01:28:22,510
So I've thought of a brilliant and sort of a late thought for this team because I think it's really important.

799
01:28:22,510 --> 01:28:31,030
Thank you so much for a great talk. I have a question related to how we see the skills crisis related to income inequality because I think

800
01:28:31,030 --> 01:28:36,460
a lot of what you were saying was does this need for more technical education and for apprenticeships?

801
01:28:36,460 --> 01:28:43,060
Then on the other side, my first thought is, are we funnelling people into jobs that don't necessarily pay very well?

802
01:28:43,060 --> 01:28:51,940
And will that to some extent exacerbate income inequality?

803
01:28:51,940 --> 01:29:01,780
Both of those two final questions are just absolutely huge and open, really, really challenging, really challenging questions, questions.

804
01:29:01,780 --> 01:29:08,320
I mean, the the right.

805
01:29:08,320 --> 01:29:16,750
So the short answer to your question is that if it's really hard to predict skills needs in the economy,

806
01:29:16,750 --> 01:29:23,380
it's even harder to predict long term wage developments in the economy.

807
01:29:23,380 --> 01:29:31,780
So where that leads me and I'm going incredibly fast on this because I could probably talk for the next two hours on this,

808
01:29:31,780 --> 01:29:41,910
and I don't think I'd be terribly popular with anybody if I did. Is that you got to create opportunities that we have people make.

809
01:29:41,910 --> 01:29:47,940
Decisions that look good, that's in the short term that turn out to be bad bets.

810
01:29:47,940 --> 01:29:52,530
You got to create opportunities for those names to be revisited.

811
01:29:52,530 --> 01:30:04,080
And one of the major challenges is driven. Income and regional inequality in this country is that we didn't do that well when manufacturing

812
01:30:04,080 --> 01:30:10,170
industry collapsed and we left significant communities and populations high and dry,

813
01:30:10,170 --> 01:30:15,900
which has generated a whole range of social, economic, political and cultural problems that we're now wrestling with.

814
01:30:15,900 --> 01:30:20,100
So it's interesting that questions about how many coal mines there are left in France.

815
01:30:20,100 --> 01:30:21,870
And the answer is none.

816
01:30:21,870 --> 01:30:33,810
They also closed all their mines, but they invested a lot more money in ensuring that communities had other routes out of deindustrialisation.

817
01:30:33,810 --> 01:30:41,440
They also have a significantly higher unemployment rate than we do in a truly messed up youth labour market.

818
01:30:41,440 --> 01:30:43,770
To me, it is so.

819
01:30:43,770 --> 01:30:52,740
So if you want to look at this system from the point of view of the users, the skills, users accept that some of them are going to make bad choices.

820
01:30:52,740 --> 01:30:58,560
We all make bad choices in life and you create a system that allows the allows

821
01:30:58,560 --> 01:31:02,730
people sensitive to reverse out of the Cul-De-Sac and get back onto the road.

822
01:31:02,730 --> 01:31:08,200
That that's that's important. I think.

823
01:31:08,200 --> 01:31:17,800
Used up our time, so let me draw to a close with these last two questions about steam and inequality.

824
01:31:17,800 --> 01:31:24,460
And the answer, I think, was steam is that we need more.

825
01:31:24,460 --> 01:31:38,920
Ian Stewart, who became the head of one of the biggest banks in the world through night school and and has been very private.

826
01:31:38,920 --> 01:31:54,970
If we had a thousand people around you being generated each year and we were celebrating that the balance of esteem would very rapidly shift.

827
01:31:54,970 --> 01:32:01,300
So that's that's that's an esteemed coin. And finally, total inequality.

828
01:32:01,300 --> 01:32:11,590
There was a very interesting survey just a few months ago in Britain about what aspects of inequality really, really mattered.

829
01:32:11,590 --> 01:32:18,130
And in fact, it was done at King's and the.

830
01:32:18,130 --> 01:32:25,300
And the result was surprising to the researchers, though not surprising to anybody who lived in the real world,

831
01:32:25,300 --> 01:32:34,480
which means that there was only one thing in the whole country that people really came together to agree about inequality.

832
01:32:34,480 --> 01:32:40,100
And that was that we had to reduce spatial inequality.

833
01:32:40,100 --> 01:32:49,630
That what you what opportunities you had to earn a good living should not depend upon where in Britain you were born.

834
01:32:49,630 --> 01:33:02,710
And at the moment, if you were born in London, you've got a 72 percent higher income chance then than in Britain outside the southeast.

835
01:33:02,710 --> 01:33:07,450
And so what? We really got agreement on consensus in Britain,

836
01:33:07,450 --> 01:33:14,860
and we're certainly finding that there's not much consensus, but is to tackle that spatial inequality.

837
01:33:14,860 --> 01:33:24,520
And that's why we've got this course of of of of discussions on levelling up to gradually build.

838
01:33:24,520 --> 01:33:33,550
And I wanted to close with a sentiment that I think was best articulated, probably by by Chris,

839
01:33:33,550 --> 01:33:44,200
that the skills, the demand for skills very much depends upon the job opportunities to use those skills.

840
01:33:44,200 --> 01:33:49,400
And so that the skills.

841
01:33:49,400 --> 01:34:01,970
Equipping people with better skills has to go hand in hand with growing the jobs that had generated predominantly by SMEs in the country.

842
01:34:01,970 --> 01:34:14,540
And that's why very shortly we've got a very important session on how to get better finance to sneeze, which is a huge task.

843
01:34:14,540 --> 01:34:25,190
So hand in hand, this series of discussions on levelling up will gradually cover the waterfront of the interventions,

844
01:34:25,190 --> 01:34:34,240
where all these complementary interventions will gradually build up to a much more spatially equal society.

845
01:34:34,240 --> 01:34:40,850
And on that, I really do want to thank Baroness Wolf.

846
01:34:40,850 --> 01:34:50,490
So Christopher Husbands and Ian Stewart, it's notable that the head of the biggest bank is the only person without a title.

847
01:34:50,490 --> 01:34:59,930
And if we wanted to level up the scheme, we might want to do something about that comment is all for us.

848
01:34:59,930 --> 01:35:04,490
Thank you very much indeed for a superb discussion. I think a very good question.

849
01:35:04,490 --> 01:35:10,393
Quite.