UKWA at Apprenticeships and Freight & Logistics APPG Meetings in Westminster

The UKWA engages with both the UK Government and Parliament in its political engagement. Our Policy team meet with officials from government departments and respond to government consultations, representing UKWA members’ interests and voicing their concerns.

Our parliamentary engagement involves us speaking with individual MPs, or groups of MPs, in all-party parliamentary groups (APPGs): informal, cross-party groups formed by MPs and peers who share a common interest in a particular subject or policy area.

In the last month, the UKWA have had a presence at recent meetings in Westminster held by the APPG for Freight & Logistics, and the APPG for Apprenticeships. Participation in APPGs is an excellent way of engaging with policymakers and keeping up to date of policy developments. It is also an opportunity, in the case of the Freight & Logistics APPG, to collaborate with like-minded trade associations in our industry.

The meeting of the Freight & Logistics APPG was chaired by Rachel Taylor MP, speaker at our UKWA Conference in March, and brought together parliamentarians, logistics businesses, and trade associations.

Rachel Taylor opened the discussion by talking about how she was at the industrial strategy launch and praised the mention of freight and logistics in the industrial strategy.

At the APPG meeting a consultation was launched on promoting diversity in the logistics workforce, which will inform a new report on this topic. The APPG discussed the underlying causes of lacking workforce diversity and the challenges in fostering diversity in the logistics industry. The APPG also discussed the good work already being done by businesses in our sectors. The UKWA will respond to this consultation and our submission will be published in due course.

The Apprenticeships APPG meeting focused on mapping and meeting future skills needs, and attendees were joined by newly appointed Chair of Skills England, and member of the Industrial Strategy Advisory Council, Phil Smith CBE. This was a valuable opportunity to hear directly from an individual associated with two of the most influential bodies shaping the UK’s skills strategy. It was reassuring to hear from him that Skills England intend to consult with employers and are committed to engaging with industry.

It was also promising to hear an acknowledgement of the link between skills and government priorities such as the building of 1.5m homes, which will necessitate the building of warehouses to serve those households’ consumer needs.

The APPG agreed that there needs to be a cross-Whitehall approach to skills, with collaboration in particular between the Department for Education and Department for Business and Trade.

If interested in issues surrounding skills, you may also be interested in joining our UKWA People & Skills advisory board, or our Young Persons advisory board, which inform our policy work and relevant consultation responses. If you have any questions or would like to express your interest, please contact us at policy@ukwa.org.uk.