Select committee: Environmental Audit Committee
Conclusion 23
Third Report - Green Jobs
Published 25 Oct 2021
Paragraph 101
Environmental Audit Committee Green Jobs All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
In school, education on climate change and environmental sustainability is limited to a few subjects. It is important that it is included across all courses to give all students a basic grounding in environmental issues and to show how their subjects can be useful in tacking environmental challenges, whatever sector they go on to work in. This will ensure the future UK workforce is climate and sustainability literate. A greater awareness of environment and sustainability across the population could lead to increased diversity of people entering green sectors, contributing to the Government’s ambitions for a more diverse and inclusive green workforce.
From: Environmental Audit Committee, Third Report - Green Jobs (HC 75), paragraph 101, 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- On the Careers Strategy, it says it "currently do[es] not plan to update" it, as it has been superseded by the Skills for Jobs white paper.