Time to monitor skills pipeline

when growing our own talent, in the face of longer term Brexit uncertainty, is so important.

Technical apprentices will become the skilled technicians of tomorrow who interpret the designs of professional engineers and make things. They are an adjunct to the STEM agenda, vital to any advanced economy.

With 70% of small firms in a recent FSB membership survey saying school leavers are ill-prepared for the workplace, FSB is also urging policymakers to bring back compulsory work experience for all students under the age of 16.

FSB National Chairman Mike Cherry bluntly states: “Young people taking on apprenticeships should not be paid so little.

“If we really want to create parity of esteem between academic and vocational routes into work, then paying apprentices £25 a day is not helpful.

“Any Government which prides itself on backing free enterprise should look at bringing work experience back into every school.”

And in an attack on the usefulness of the Apprenticeship Levy applying to many UK businesses, he insists: “More should be done to ensure levy funding can be shared across supply chains. That means increasing the current 10% cap on transfers [of costs to the supply chain].

“We also need to see the exemption for training and assessment costs – which currently only applies to those with under 50 employees – extended to all small firms.”

Moving to the corporate world, the second call for action comes from the CBI. Its latest labour market report entitled Open and Controlled – A New Approach to Migration provides evidence from 129,000 firms across 18 industry sectors recommending in an almost step-by-step fashion how to ensure competitive supply of labour, post Brexit. It is surely mandatory reading for our Brexit negotiators and UK Cabinet members.

Frustrated by a continuing lack of necessary detail on migration, companies want to see a new approach that remains open enough to grow the UK economy after current freedom of movement ends, while maintaining controls that build public confidence.

Most credible economic studies, says the CBI, show that immigration delivers net economic benefits for the UK.

As implied on many occasions in this column, that means foreign workers put in more than they take out. Their taxes outweigh the benefits they receive, in turn reducing pressure on UK government debt.

Following a “significant consultation” with businesses of all sizes, the CBI says the “inter-connectedness” of different sectors, shows how important migration is to all parts of the UK economy and, importantly, at all skills levels.

With a degree of knowledge too many pro-brexiteers simply don’t have, the CBI pitches a view contending the needs of the whole UK and its regional economies are more complex than only ensuring the attraction of the so called “brightest and best” job candidates from other EU or global territories.

It uses a neat example: “Housebuilding needs architects for design, labourers to dig foundations and electricians to help finish the job.

“In the food and drink sector, the supply chain starts with agriculture, then logistics and ends with retail.”

There are five themes, which I paraphrase here as:

 Shifting from simple numbers control to assessing contribution and investing in local public services where demand has been increased by migration.  Replacing free movement with an open, but still appropriately controlled, immigration system for EU workers.

 Reforming the UK’S non-eu immigration system to better access skilled workers skills from around the world.

 Recognising the linkage between people and trade while forging new global economic relationships.

 Ensuring the transition to a new migration system is done with respect for the people affected.

One of the most sensible recommendations to my mind, from a total of 17 headings in this compendium of gathered business opinion, is the suggestion that a new labour market test is devised.

This would be linked to local labour market conditions, such as unemployment rates for specified professions, thus triggering prioritisation of local recruitment.

More discussion is required on the practicalities, but simplistically that would satisfy the subtly different employment agendas of, say, the English Midlands and Scotland.

The CBI’S clout increases the volume of voice on these issues. You can only hope it can be heard through the babble of cross-party political posturing.