Speeches by Reader.

“Professor Robson, you have partly answered this already, so apologies for going over the same ground. You talked about the demand side and the need to redesign, but to what extent can we rely on employers and professional bodies alone to meet the training demand for what is a much larger appropriately skilled workforce…”

“I wondered whether either of you would like to come in on that. If not, I will ask my final question.”

“Can I ask a question about the existing workforce? We have seen in evidence that under the last Government adult learning dropped by nearly 50%. Funding for adult learning was down at least 30% under the previous Government. What do the new Government need to do in terms of practical steps to help to prepare the existi…”

“That is really interesting. In the short term, Government have the Clean Power 2030 Action Plan, and have been relatively clear with industry about what they are looking for. We heard in evidence last week that, for emergent technologies and that longer-term pipeline, there is still a lot of uncertainty. I will ask thi…”

“On that, and to slightly play devil’s advocate, most suppliers or trade bodies would say that they have already done that work. They have set that out, produced White Papers and policy documents and told Government what they need. They now need the skills and the people to deliver what they have told Government. Where …”

“I am going to ask you some questions about career pathways. It was quite interesting, in looking at the early submissions we have had, that there is not a single common view. Some submissions have said that the existing workforce is enough to deliver transition and clean energy. Some have said that we should be focusin…”

“Marie-Laure, given that we have heard it is not feasible or desirable for the UK to specialise in recycling all materials in question, do you have any more views on what we perhaps should be prioritising?”

“I thank the Secretary of State and her team for their work on the Government’s response to the inquiry. Having spent my life in the construction sector, I can tell the House that fixing construction products is incredibly challenging. I really welcome the Green Paper published today, because we have to get that right. …”

“Thinking about the manufacturing sector more broadly, we are having to bring in legislation, such as EPR and others, to get industry to recycle and take ownership of the products that they create. That potentially feels like something we would have to do here to really drive industry to do it, otherwise there is no com…”

“Yes.”

“My final question is to you, Pranesh. Picking up on the recycled economy strategy, would it be fair to say that, unless there is a commercial incentive for companies to consider recycling, they probably will not do it? That strategy has to have some proper teeth because, as we have heard, the industry has not even cons…”

“Is that because composites can be manufactured in the UK?”

“Is this a global challenge? We have talked about Denmark having best practice in terms of manufacturing, but is there a global challenge here—that industry has not considered the recycling part of the job—or are other countries not having this problem?”

“You heard us finish the last panel talking about disassembly and recycling, and that is where I am picking up here. I will start with Steve but welcome input from all of you. What is required to provide more confidence to industry to invest in UK disassembly and recycling infrastructure for our clean energy technology?”

“Given that we are talking now about there being an issue on recycling, if you are doing a study into new ways of building turbines, should the dismantling and recycling be part of that study?”

“Yes.”

“I just want to pick up on something, Olivia. You have mentioned this GIGA funding a few times. If we had a Minister here, I am sure the answer would be that it did not exist. Did the money actually exist? The Government committed it, but was it one of the pledges where the money is not there because it did not exist in…”

“On that project that you specifically referenced with DESNZ, are you also considering recyclability?”

“I am coming to the end of my time, so this is my final question. Considering that global competitiveness and the supply chain in the UK, how mature is the UK supply chain compared with other developed markets?”

“If we take the emerging technologies within the clean power plan and then think about the global supply chain and global competitiveness—there are countries around the world who are also trying to invest in floating offshore wind, tidal, carbon capture, et cetera—is the UK attractive in terms of global competitiveness …”