Select committee: Environmental Audit Committee
Conclusion 11
Third Report - Green Jobs
Published 25 Oct 2021
Paragraph 64
Environmental Audit Committee Green Jobs All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
The voucher element of the Green Homes Grant scheme, the Government’s recent flagship scheme to address covid-19 impact while stimulating jobs in the green sector of home retrofit for energy efficiency, was not a success, and may even have put people out of work; there is a need to rebuild trust with the retrofit sector. Lack of engagement with the industry over the design of the scheme led to it being sub- optimal, resulting in a fragmented and actively disruptive approach to developing skills in a vital sector. The Government has acknowledged that the voucher scheme has not operated as intended in this respect.
From: Environmental Audit Committee, Third Report - Green Jobs (HC 75), paragraph 64, 25 October 2021
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 20 January 2022 (deadline 25 December 2021).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government welcomes the Committee's focus on green jobs and skills, points to its Net Zero Strategy and a new Green Jobs Delivery Group, and in places declines to set out the requested plans, costings or measures.
- A Green Jobs Delivery Group will include ministers from BEIS, Defra, DfE, DWP and DfT alongside an industry co-chair, with further detail "in the new year".
- On indicative costings for green jobs actions, it says further allocations depend on ongoing policy development, so "it is not possible to set these out to the Committee at this point".
- On a module on environmental sustainability in every apprenticeship and T Level, it says "we do not believe that a generic sustainability module across every occupational standard is appropriate". Sustainability elements are included "where occupationally relevant".
- On the Careers Strategy, it says it "currently do[es] not plan to update" it, as it has been superseded by the Skills for Jobs white paper.