Pre-Budget Report

The Leitch report alludes to that when it says that because of globalisation, there are 6 million unskilled workers in our economy today, but because most of the traded goods sector can find unskilled workers in other continents, we will need only 500,000 in 2020. We have a stark choice. We have to ensure that people today who do not have the skills, get them for the future. I would have thought that there would be all-party consensus on what to do to achieve that. Britain is in a race with other countries to ensure that we can successfully work globalisation to our advantage. The hon. Gentleman shouts ““10 years””, but in the last 10 years a million more people have acquired adult and literacy skills and 3 million more people in the work force are skilled. That is what we need to do to ensure that we are best equipped for globalisation. I hope that we will see all-party support—when the Opposition get a policy that adds up, they may be prepared to support us—for a strategy of upskilling our work force right across the board. We are prepared to make the commitment to invest to do so. I look forward to coming before the Treasury Committee to debate those very issues.