Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009 (Consequential Amendments) (England and Wales) Order 2010

My Lords, I support these orders. They are very helpful. I am glad to follow the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley. The Government have done well to bring the orders forward in the manner in which they have been presented. I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for her painstaking introduction. It is the case that British industry will die unless Governments of all complexions continue to smooth the progress of apprenticeships and skills. The 2009 Act concerning apprenticeships and skills is of high importance. Ministers deserve credit for their investment in and reform of the training industry. It is clear that this investment will help to support what remains of Britain’s industries, particularly manufacturing. If our nation is to retain its standing in the industrial first rank, investment in apprenticeships and skills is of paramount importance. I acknowledge the increasingly important roles in training played by colleges of further education, sixth forms and universities. There is a massive input by our companies and enterprises, large and small, in England and Wales. Surely, this order concerning skills and apprenticeships will make the work of the interested parties in factories, offices, colleges and universities easier and even more successful. In another place, for more than 30 years, it was my duty to follow the fortunes of the skills industry, the aerospace industry and manufacturing generally, whether in debates, by Questions or by deputations. One of the biggest manufacturing industries in the United Kingdom is the aerospace industry. It earns billions of pounds, perhaps £7 billion a year now, in exports. In the aerospace industry in England and Wales, there is great investment in apprenticeships and skills. As a result, despite global downturns, there is much skilled employment and considerable prosperity, and I pay tribute in this field of employment to the now famous European company, Airbus UK. Its large plant at Filton, Bristol, has high standing and employs several thousand highly skilled employees, and it always invests in apprenticeships and skills. The newest Airbus project, an airliner—the A350—will use composite materials for wing manufacture in this country. It will therefore require even more skills and even more apprenticeships. The workforce will move into new technological territory with the use of composites. This is now the only way forward for the aerospace industry, and our universities and colleges are in the vanguard. The corresponding Airbus plant in north-east Wales is in Flintshire in a town called Broughton. More than 6,000 highly skilled operatives on site produce the wings of the world’s high-class airliners such as the A320, the A330, the A340—the Airbus series overall—and, not least, the world’s largest airliner, the super-jumbo A380, a double-decker machine. There are more than 600 apprentices at this plant, including school leavers, mature entrants and graduates. The plant would not prosper without investment in apprenticeships and skills. Filton and Broughton Airbus airliners are showing world-class skills. They are outselling and outproducing the great competitors, such as the mighty Boeing company, out of sight, and are earning billions of pounds per year for our country. This is because of their long-term investment as industrial sites in apprenticeships and skills. The plant at Broughton pumps £7 million per week into the economies of Chester, Cheshire, the north-west, and north-east Wales, and is one of the greatest success stories in Britain’s recent manufacturing history—indeed, since World War Two ended—and the A380, the greatest airliner that is now flying, is arguably the biggest European engineering venture since the Channel Tunnel. Finally, and consequently, I pay tribute to the retiring senior vice-president of manufacturing, Mr Brian Fleet, CBE, who is the leader of Airbus UK. He has quite brilliantly led a wonderful team in Bristol and in north Wales that is based on apprenticeships and skills. Indeed, he was an apprentice at the Broughton plant. His rise has been remarkable, and he is renowned throughout Europe as a plane-maker, a leader of apprentices and an investor in skills and training. At Filton and Broughton, Britain has a world-class, cutting-edge, profitable and successful aerospace venture that is based on high skills. The orders are to be welcomed. Surely, they will enhance British manufacturing via skills. Mr Fleet’s management and union teams have collaborated brilliantly to rise to every challenge in engineering, and they are helping Britain to keep her lead in employment in the aerospace industry. The apprenticeship and skills order is an England and Wales order and I would therefore appreciate a few words from the Minister concerning its impact on Wales in the knowledge that the Governments in London and Cardiff always collaborate.