Co-chair of the parliamentary group on skills joins IEMA members to discuss green jobs policy

IEMA members were recently joined at a roundtable by Lauren Edwards MP, the Co-Chair of the Skills, Careers and Employment All-Party Parliamentary Group, to discuss the ongoing development of the green jobs and skills agenda in the UK. Ben Goodwin, IEMA's Director of Policy and Public Affairs, looks at some of the key discussion points from the session. 

The roundtable was another opportunity for the Institute to set out the need for government to engage in broader green jobs and skills policy development.  Since last year's election, we've lost the Green Jobs Delivery Group and therefore the work that it was doing in planning green jobs and skills on an economy-wide basis. 

Addressing climate change, and the biodiversity and wider environmental crises, is best done in an integrated way. After all, these are phenomena that are inherently connected to one another. The same logic applies in building the workforce that will ultimately deliver the practical solutions to these challenges, and this was emphasised at the roundtable.

We need a strategic and cross-cutting green jobs plan to underpin the clean growth the government is aiming to deliver.

Before the roundtable opened for general discussion, Lauren Edwards MP referred to Labour’s electoral mandate to upskill the workforce to deliver growth.

A key focus here was on the urgent efforts required to get the workforce in shape to deliver on the Government’s ambitious clean energy programme and broader development objectives.

On green jobs and skills specifically, the MP for Rochester and Strood pointed to the Global Climate Talent Stocktake, which highlighted last year that demand for green talent in the UK grew a staggering 46% between 2023 and 2024.

Comments on the inflexibility of the Apprenticeship Levy under the previous administration and the need to put marginalised communities at the forefront of driving progress on the sustainability agenda were met with approval from roundtable attendees.

The broader discussion went on to focus on the long-term policy and regulatory certainty on the decarbonisation agenda that businesses crave. It is this that can help build the confidence that businesses need to invest in skills and training.

There were also interventions on the need for the government’s policy programme in this space, from its new Growth and Skills Levy through to the work of the newly formed Skills England, to take a balanced approach to green jobs and skills delivery.

The ‘balance’ being referred to here is to ensure that the right educational opportunities are on offer for those people entering the workforce for the first time, whilst ensuring that appropriate reskilling and upskilling policy strategies for the existing workforce are in place.

The final parts of the discussion covered the need for policy alignment between the devolved administrations on green jobs and skills to help businesses and organisations working across boundaries, alongside the need to ensure that all policy development in this space is guided by a shared goal to increase diversity in the sustainability sector. 

The next session in our public affairs roundtable series will be with Toby Perkins MP, the Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee. In this session, we will discuss what’s required from the revision that the Environmental Improvement Plan for England is currently going through.