By Richard Johnstone | 9 December 2013
Labour has appointed two senior local government figures to an advisory group that will devise ways to tackle the regional skills gaps across England.
Liam Byrne, shadow minister for universities and science today announced the creation of the policy group, which will also examine skills policy for the 50% of young people who do not go to university.
It will bring together shadow ministers from Labour’s business, work and pensions, and education teams with the leader of Leeds City Council, Keith Wakefield, and the deputy leader of Manchester City Council, Sue Murphy.
Giving a speech to mark 50 years from former Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s famous speech on the ‘white heat’ of the technological revolution, Byrne said government reforms were needed to create a supply of high-paid and high-skilled jobs.
A future Labour administration would set out a long-term approach for science to spur investment as part of a reformed role for the public sector in innovation, he told an audience at the Institute for Public Policy and Research.
‘If we’re to win a race to the top, we can’t simply eliminate the state, we have to reinvent the state,’ he said. ‘Not a big state, but a smart state.
‘The right state, the right public institutions, is the only way we can build a different kind of economy, an economy with a bigger supply of high-skilled, high-paid jobs, and if we give more opportunities to people from all walks of life, then we will create a more socially mobile society.’
A regional skills policy will be required to ensure people can find jobs in their local area, he added.
There are currently rising skills shortages in areas of very high unemployment, said Byrne.
‘In fact in the North West and the West Midlands, nearly one in five vacancies are caused by a problem attracting the right people, yet across those two regions we have 540,000 people out of work.
‘If Britain is to win a race to the top, we need our regions to grow faster. The opportunity now is to underpin these ideas with strong regional skills policy aimed at driving down unemployment, meeting the skills gaps facing employers and increasing the opportunities for the forgotten 50% of young people that do not go to university.’
