Learning Fund

The Usdaw retail union welcomed a Westminster Hall debate on Skills England initiated by Labour MP Antonia Bance, who made the case for the return of the Union Learning Fund.

She called the Tories’ axing of the fund in 2020 “sheer vandalism”.

In its final year it supported 200,000 workers into learning or training. More than two-thirds of learners with no previous qualifications got their first qualification through union learning, and it added more than £1.4 billion to the economy.

Usdaw general secretary Paddy Lillis said: “Unionlearn reached the people other schemes did not.”