(Andy Street)
The thing I wanted to put on the table, and I think we should think about is there are opportunities. There are always opportunities in the time of incredible change, that was the lesson of ‘08. And how do we help SME’s think about those opportunities, because if you're running your own business and you're dealing with the crisis of today, how do you find the brain space for looking for the opportunities in the future? Because actually what this region has got to do is demonstrate that it can invest behind the big opportunities that are there for us, whether it be in clean growth, whether it be in transport technologies, whatever, and actually just we talk about it, but galvanizing ourselves to do it, I think, is where there's a very interesting conversation.
(Jane Stevenson MP)
In Wolverhampton specifically I'm quite hopeful about our National Brownfield Institute, the move towards green homes. I think there's lots of construction training, and if you think about the retrofitting of homes, that's going to be taking place over 10, 20 years potentially. There is a big industry they are sort of waiting to launch and-brownfield reclamation. I'm really hopeful my constituents had really high youth unemployment before the pandemic, and it was one of the major things I wanted to try and make dents in because it creates so many other problems in the city.
(Katie Trout)
There's a real danger we've seen this in previous recessions around the cuts in training and recruitment budgets as well. That you know that's and again, a very easy thing for businesses to say we don't need this at that time, but actually, if they're not able to continue to invest in, you know skills development and bring on the right people that they need going forward, then again they're in a very challenging position to be able to take on, to survive this period and take on the opportunities that Andy mentioned that we’ve got to try to grasp hold of. So, I think that’s something that’s a challenge for all of us in terms of our the different roles that we play, to see how we can help businesses through that this period both in terms of, that being able to continue to develop their workforce, bring on the talent that they need but also be able to support them with that diversification, in terms of that the product lines, the business models that they have, because actually whilst we hope that things will obviously move away from quite, with the circumstances we are in at the moment, it's going to be a new world in the future isn’t it and actually there are some business that won’t look the same again so we need to be helping them now to think about that and I think that’s something we can all do together to help enable.
(George Feiger)
So, as far as we’re concerned there are two key things for regenerating the West Midlands. The first is what I would call, I would say is self-reinforcing demand based on an integrated growth plan and the second thing is vision. We talk about employing youth and so on but businesses flourish and hire people when they have customers who want to buy things from them in increasing amounts, it comes from the market not from the supply side, and the key to resolving our problems is that growth in that demand and the Midlands has always been a region that makes things, and making things hasn’t gone out of fashion. Germany flourishes from making things, parts of the US do, China does, all these places make things. Now, making things doesn’t go to the place with the cheapest labour, TESLA makes cars on the outskirts of San Francisco which is arguably the most expensive manufacturing location in the entire world, it’s a booming success. If you look at Germany or Switzerland, they’re very high wage countries, that are extraordinarily successful. So, making things is totally compatible with high income, high tech and everything else. So, our problem is how do we get that kind of demand from making things which is the heart of what the Midlands has always been. And sophisticated manufacturing which is what we’re talking about depends on being part of cluster, a cluster of related businesses supported by education and training, and Jo if you’ll forgive me, sympathetic finance. And so, we need a plan that identifies some sectors we’re going to consistently put money into, and those sectors will then define the kind of education and training we need and the infrastructure we need.
(Charlotte Horobin)
Right now our big concern is that further education which hasn’t been invested in as it should have been over the last few years, and Lloyds have done a great job doing that with the AMTC, we’ve got a training centre in Birmingham, we mustn’t let those training provisions be hollowed out because looking to the future we mustn’t have that debt saddled manufacturing sector because we’ve got to invest in R and D, we’ve got to work with Aston, the MTC, WMG, we’ve got world class facilities but we’ve also got to make sure that when, you know, our issues with the EU and Covid move aside that the big problem for manufacturing again will be skills and we can’t let that happen. But I do think Covid’s forced the hand of a number of manufactures that are now thinking about new markets, there thinking about embracing digital skills and digital technology a lot quicker than what they would have done so perhaps it has exacerbated some real positive things that can help the sector grow.
(Andy Street)
Let's be honest this is one of the mission critical issues for two reasons. Number one, its critical to the cohesion of society that young people are not left behind in this as other people have said but, it’s also critical for businesses that they are refreshing themselves just as Tony said and new ideas are coming in and I’m going to show my age now, but we all know the people that went onto the YTS scheme in the 1980’s when I was 18 who ended up running a company, so you know there is a source of brilliant new talent.
(Tony Sartorius)
Ok my view on apprentices, it is obviously the thing that needs to be done the difficulty I think with a lot of SME’s is that they don't really know, very small companies don't really know what to do where to go and how to do it and my advice to them all is look you’ve just got to do it.
(Jane Stevenson MP)
Young people we are presuming they are going off to be employed by someone but what entrepreneur support is there for young entrepreneurs and how they could set up their own businesses. And as someone who was always self-employed it is not the only route, so I just wonder to throw that into the mix as a sort of wild card.
(Katie Trout)
How do we get that message out to businesses about what support is there. And I think a key route for doing that would be around the growth hubs that each of the local enterprise partnerships have. So, these hubs offer that impartial and independent advice and guidance about the different offers that are there. And should be really well, and hopefully good support for businesses and certainly in GBS LEP we have just launched ours or just put together our skills hub as part of that as well, so that is a dedicated team that will be working with businesses to give them advice on apprenticeships, on skills, training needs, assessments and various other aspects too. So again, it’s trying to not only communicate the opportunities but also help businesses to navigate through some of the complexities and the different sort of forms that are required etc as well.
(Charlotte Horobin)
But I think one of the things we’re most cautious about is tempting as it might feel right now to dip into the apprenticeship levy pot to spend it on other things, we must make sure that some of that money, all of that money is safeguarded because in 2,3,4 years’ time when you know business is booming again we will be left with that hiatus of not enough skills coming through. So as Tony said now is not the time for him to be taking on an apprentice, what we would like to see is the, sort of sunset period of the credit extended, so the levy still exists but that money can be tapped into for a longer period of time so when businesses like Tony’s are feeling more buoyant, that money is there to train technical level people that need to come into businesses and that we don’t end up with a skills gap in another 2,3,4 years’ time.
(George Feiger)
If there is no demand growth everything we do is like moving money from the left pot to the right pot. If we want more apprentices employed or more young people employed there has to be business growth. And the key to everything is a coherent growth support policy and that will include improving export knowledge, that’s trade finance, that’s knowing do you get on a plane assuming one flies and you get off at Bangkok, who do you talk to, where do you go? So, the key issues in building this up, is how do you connect with other supply chains. I just don’t want us to lose track of the fundamental driver which is demand for the output while we are worried about the mechanics. Do I know how to get an apprentice, should we have one here or there? All of this only works if someone wants to employ them and they will only want to employ them if their business is growing.
