Key government departments are not currently represented in its Green Jobs Delivery Group, and no changes will be made to the national curriculum to embed environmental sustainability in education, the government has confirmed in its response to the Environmental Audit Committee’s ‘Green Jobs’-report.
Still, the government has expressed its commitment to ensure the right skills and wider employment support are in place to support people into green jobs and has confirmed that it will report periodically on progress on embedding green jobs across government schemes.
However, there are no plans to embed environmental sustainability across all primary and secondary school courses and in A-Levels, stating that sustainability elements of apprenticeships and T-Levels will only be covered ‘where occupationally relevant.’
Environmental Audit Committee Chairman, Philip Dunne MP, commented: “The Government’s general commitment to ensure the right skills are in place for the green transition is welcome, as is the work being done by the Department for Work and Pensions to ensure how green goals can be incorporated into labour market interventions.
“When we published our report in October, we expressed concern that the Government’s grand ambitions to deliver two million green jobs lacked policy detail. This is sadly borne out in the response.
“Government departments lack a central coordination function to deliver green jobs policies. The national curriculum is not embedding environmental sustainability nor even restoring the teaching of nature into schools as we had recommended. The Government’s response to our report is therefore disappointing.
“This Government’s current piecemeal approach to green jobs does not give the confidence boost to those industrial sectors that will require, and need to develop, the green skills of the future.”
The Green Jobs-report, along with the government response, are available on the UK Parliament website.
