Johnny Reynolds on Jobs of the Future: Skills, Scale-Ups, Net Zero and AI

27:02It needed, people need to understand that and the potential consequences of that. I often think, first of all, you've got to decide what is the strategic thing you're trying to do? I mean, of course, you're going to cover debate, so you're going to respond when the minister responds. What are you trying to do? So that was the challenge around that job. With having had that experience in particular, you know, I wanted essentially the business job because I wanted the overview on the labor side of the entire business engagement and relationship that we had. And so I think, first of all, there was an overwhelming need to build our relationships with the business community better, to engage in all sectors, to make sure not just the business team were doing that, but the whole of the party, the front bench, was the common script and messages that we were doing and getting out there.

27:46But also, if you look at the big challenges, anyone who wins the next election, what are the big challenges they will face? Well, look, the fact is since the financial crisis, this country's economic performance has not been what it needs to be. You know, that's an objective statement in terms of growth, productivity in particular, wages, and that's why there's a bit of industrial action. It comes down to that and the cost of living. We clearly have to, you know, get that post-Brexit relationship and future right in terms of relationships around the world and our relationship with the EU. Net zero is coming to the crunch point.

28:18Yeah. What we've done so far has not been easy, but it is the easier bits, things like industrial decarbonisation, a lot harder. And of course, then we've seen this massive change in the global picture, the inflation reduction act, the investment that's gone to the US as a result of that. So I would say not only does an opposition and incoming government always need a good relationship with business, I would say you can't tackle any of those challenges. You genuinely can't, unless you're building that up. And I suppose ultimately, I believe we're getting towards a place, and this is my objective, where any business looking at the prospect of a general election next year will say, well, not only is there no risk premium associated with the Labour government taking over, we're more excited about Labour's plans than we are of a fifth term of Conservative government.

29:02So that is what we're trying to do. The response from businesses, again, I think if you come up with that genuine enthusiasm, that's all that they want. But I do think on particularly industrial strategy, on making Brexit work, and our plans to change the apprenticeship levy and the planning system and the regulation on national grid connections, I do think all of these things are reflecting the genuine things that are currently barriers to investment in the UK. And what are the sort of the three things that get brought up most by business? I mean, I know you've talked a bit about kind of political instability being the number one, which I think everyone can see that over the last year.

29:37But what are the other things that sort of businesses say actually be really helpful to get government's support on this? So stability is what they raise, first of all. And that's obviously a reflection of we had a year with three prime ministers. I mean, it's a reasonable complaint about the political system if that is where it is. But they also mean in terms of the investment periods for some of those net zero questions, the incentives and the relative trade-offs of making those investments in the UK, they do need reassurance that you will not see policy change in response to short-term political pressure.

30:10So I always remember being the shadow energy minister in 2015. The eco program is a big home insulation program. It lasted less than a calendar year. it is reasonable for businesses to complain if the political system is not giving them the time frames that they need. That is always the first one. Skills will be the next one. And obviously we have plans to change the apprenticeship levy, give businesses more controlled, more flexibility really over how they spend that. But also it's often a question of, okay, they want that resource. They really like that policy. Will the quality be there? Will it be available in which to use that?

30:43You know, very hard time for FE. And if I was saying the third one it would either be planning uh or it would be things like national breed and the inability to get connections to become a huge issue in terms of again delaying those investments large and small from pubs to to gigafactories that's coming through there so you know there's a little bit of commentary now in the in the in the media which is there was a change of government it's not gonna be a lot of money to spend because things are tight what can change well actually i would say on things like negotiating a better brexit agreement the planning system allowing people to make those investments, changing business rates is a big one of our policies, how the apprenticeship levy functions.

31:20Actually, you know, there are things you can do. Let's not get into a, you know, we do have a commitment to greater public investment around leveraging in private investment around net zero. But let's be clear, there are some big things that can be done that I think would improve the UK's relative position quite a lot. And when it comes to skills, let's just dive into that for a bit. What are the skills that people are short of? What do you think are sort of the challenges in the next 20, 30 years? I mean, in terms of how daunting some of the challenges are, this is one of the biggest, because I think the UK has simultaneously got skill shortages, it's got labour shortages, which is a distinct but related issue, and it's got net immigration at record levels.

31:59Now that's in political terms, that is a challenge for businesses. That is a challenge in terms of getting that. But I, I mean, in any sector I talk to, from hospitality to manufacturing and engineering, they're talking about skills shortages. I think, first of all, aside from questions about numbers in terms of immigration, the system has to work better in terms of how fast and responsive it is. We have something called the shortage occupation list. There are roles on there that have been on for over a decade, you know, the sense that it's not dynamic and respect and need. And of course, because some of the things haven't changed, with genuine shortages, I mean, one of the big losses from the end of freedom of movement has been that more kind of technical shop floor role in Eastern Europe.

32:41Yeah. A lot of people coming to the UK, I mean, about one in 10 at one time of the manufacturing workforce would have come from there. Obviously, some of that has been closed off. We've got very high immigration from, say, Nigeria or India, maybe more on the social care side. And so this is the challenge, immigration hybrid. but it's not replacing. It's a different cohort. Very welcome, very good, but still, you know, it's a different question, therefore. And I do think there's ways the system can work better. I do think fundamentally for my constituents, they do know and they do celebrate that immigration will always play a role in filling some of those shortages.

33:18All they want to know is it's not going to be the only way to do that. And the reason we've got that policy around flexibility in the apprenticeship levy, which will become a skills levy, is that, look, at the minute, if you're spending 100 % of your levy on apprenticeships, brilliant, you won't be affected. By giving you the right to spend up to half a bit on other forms of training, which would be approved forms of training, but that could be the more, well, it could be anything, but it could be the shorter forms of access to particular skills and training, which actually, I'm always amazed how quickly businesses themselves can get people up to speed.

33:51Yeah, yeah. It's very dynamic. Do you think we can all of that, more businesses sort of? I think how, if you look at some of the major tech companies, they have in-house skills and training programs that they pitched ideas to me and to Bridget Phillips in our education shadow around, you know, how could that be made perhaps more available? How could some of that be joined up? Or how could some of the basis of that be done? Now, you've got to get that right because they've got business needs and some of them have put huge resources into developing that. But I do think you've got to ask it, if you need to know something, is this a job around the house, what would you do?

34:24probably Google it, wouldn't it? As the starting point. I mean, I, yeah, I was just thinking that. I asked in YouTube stuff. I looked at a video how to change a particular type of toilet seat on YouTube. It's the go-to way to go. And the fact that there are ways to deliver training to people in a much more, I suppose, available way, that's got to be something that we think is a good thing. So the whole range of skills that people need, there's different ways to get that. I mean, with skills now sitting, thing, unlike the Labour government skills, which sits in the education department rather than me, don't quite get to lead on that in the same way, but the business voice and relationship into that has got to be key.

35:02The other thing I'd say is, I think having those national changes to the apprenticeship level, you're completely consistent with devolving some of the control over that to parts of the country. So in Greater Manchester, we've already got the devolution of skills in FE. You know, what Andy Burnham as mayor is looking at is how could you specialise some of our FE colleges? Yeah. The key thing there is a transport system that lets young people go. Exactly. By heart. So local control of, say, the bus routes was an essential part of that, a pass for young people to access in a reasonable way. Public transport to do that had to be sorted out first.

35:40But actually, what I'd say you'd want in a city like Greater Manchester is not 10 places trying to do exactly the same. It's going to be some commonality. But, you know, the way we could link in the business community to specialize some of those places to do that, which is what Andy's talking about. I think that would really improve the product that could be available. Yeah. And the MBAC thing that he's looking at, you know, I think is quite interesting in terms of like, well, Manchester is specific. We need these specific skills and people take a bit more ownership of it. I want to talk about your career and so on.

36:10So you mentioned a couple of times you were a trainee solicitor, trainee in the legal sector. Why did you choose that? Well, I was, I think I always wanted a sort of clear profession, you know, not just a job, a profession. And my route into law, a little bit complicated. I mean, I, so I left the Northeast. I went to Manchester University, left Manchester. Great time, you know, first class degree, elected to the student union, all of those classic, you know, university things. Light change of plan. My eldest son was born just after I graduated. So what's quite the case of being able to go straight to law school, I had to wait a few years and make sure the family situation was able to do that.

36:52So when I went, I really had to wait and think about it. And I loved every minute of it because the pressure was on you when you're going to go back into education and you've got children already. It's much more serious. I mean, how you maybe approached your undergraduate years, it's not the same. But I got my training contract with Vattleshall Goddard. You're one of the most famous firms in Manchester, really, in the legal sector. So it was, you know, and the chance to, it was a job where, first of all, it's, I mean, it's not quite as diverse and different as being an MP where things can change every day, but again, you're dealing with a whole range of businesses.

37:31Um, you know, I remember, you know, some of those clients, you also have the, ones like the cooperative group, um, they were doing a big acquisition at the time. But, you know, I think the first deal I was ever kind of really allowed to take a lead on was a telecoms acquisition deal. And you learned all about those different sectors. And I actually, I was a local councillor in my area at the same time as I was doing that. So I was, you know, I saw that in ways, you know, strength and weaknesses of both public sector and private sector. And I think in politics, we can do with maybe a bit more people who appreciate the strength and weaknesses of both worlds.

38:07It just doesn't tend to work out that way for most people. For obvious reasons, your career goes in a direction. But I really enjoyed it. I probably would have, you know, almost certainly stayed with Alashaw, hopefully got a job in the corporate team on M &A and things like that. But I became into people by accident, really, in the 2010 election. My own constituency had a vacancy, very, you know, short notice. I was there being a young councillor, you know. Yeah, yeah. The choice of really my friends in the local area. And very few people, if I'm being honest, get to be the MP for the areas they already live.

38:41I think a lot of people don't quite appreciate this, but you would usually choose to want to do it. You wouldn't find somewhere that needs a candidate. You either have to inherit it from someone who's retiring or beat an opponent to do it. When you get a chance, and it's where you live, where your friends are, I mean, it's an amazing opportunity. So I never regretted it, but I would have been, you know, I'm still very much involved and connected to my friends who are my fellow trainees. They're all partners now in law firms. and so they're doing very well. Because you were 29 when you were elected, right?

39:08Yeah, so I mean there was a lot of change in 2010. It was after the expenses crisis. A lot of people had stood down for various reasons, but we certainly hadn't expected my MP at the time to stand down, so it really was a short notice thing. So, you know, there were people coming. The youngest MP at the time was Pam Nash, I think it was maybe 21 or 22. Relatively younger, but we had this kind of developed family situation and things at the time. But I would have been really happy to stay with that. What changes have you noticed in politics and in the job of an MP over the last 14 years or so? Yes, some real significant ones.

39:46I mean, the hardest bit has been the general kind of trust and I think esteem at which politicians I've held in has declined. I mean, let's be realistic. It's never, you know. Yeah. Politics is always going to be... I always kind of say people know, if you're a politician, you've got to accept people probably don't like you. as a default position until you meet them and hopefully you'll give a more positive impression of what the whole thing is like. But, you know, that has been a factor. And obviously, I mean, we've seen Boris Johnson's Prime Minister's specific things like standards and ethics in public life.

40:17So that bit has been hard. The big impact has been technology on the job. I mean, I remember once I was talking, I think it was Ken Clark, and I said, you know, what was it like when you started? I was in the 1970s when Ken was elected. And he said, oh, you should get like seven or eight letters a week. no one expected you to even reply to them you know he said someone said you know even his own party tried to stop him off from the constituency office to try and speak to his own his own you know electorate so in these days that the stuff coming in in a good way is is i mean in a week i think we'd be looking at a couple of thousand communications um emails tweets letters again i mean i remember i think i read something from roy hattersley um in 2010 when i was elected saying you know he remembers when he was first elected if you wanted to kind of contact your constituency you practically had to walk out of parliament and go to a phone box on parliament now for a private conversation because he used to share offices now i can i can pull out my phone facebook live not just my constituents but anyone who follows me and tells what i'm doing as well so that bit is great but it has come at a at a cost the other side of that is you know there's a lot more online abuse.

41:27I think female politicians get it much worse than the male. Um, there's a resilience that is required there. I mean, my, my wife does a lot of political training. She, uh, she's the director of something called Labour Women's Network, which runs, you know, one of our kind of premium training programs for female candidates. And I'm just really struck by how much of their work is about, you know, I remember political training 20 or 30 years ago as hell. This is how you write a press release, you know, so you get the attention of your local paper. now be much more about how will you manage your time, your personal resilience in the face of some of these pressures?

41:59How will you make sure that you are not mistaking activity for outcomes? You can fill your diary with all sorts, but is it really delivering on what you want to deliver in this role? So it's changed a lot in that. Parliament's hours have changed quite a bit. I mean, there were 10 o 'clock finishes on Monday and Tuesday when I started. Now only Monday has that because people know it starts at the half two, so everyone from get to Parliament for every part of the country. So actually the time-wise side of that has changed quite a bit. The big thing since the pandemic, because of the, you know, complete take up of platforms like Zoom and Teams has been, sometimes if constituents want to see you, they're really happy to do it, not just on a Friday or Thursday night when you're home.

42:41They can, you know, do it. I mean, I talked to a local group in my constituency yesterday because they wanted to do it via Zoom so I could do it on a Wednesday. That's a real bonus. Yeah, yeah. It's a real change. I mean, it's never going to replace your classic Friday surgery, visits to schools and all that kind of stuff. But yeah, it's easy to communicate as an MP. I think that's got to be a plus. Just on the Ken Clarke stuff, if you ever get him talking about letters being sent, I think he got quite a few letters from Brian Clough complaining about immigration. Picking up on one of your earlier points of not being able to sign letters for Nottingham Forest.

43:17You should get him to tell you those stories if you can. What did your parents do? So my dad was a fireman. Yeah. And my mum did various jobs in the main, you know, raised us as children, really around the shift patterns of the five brigade. But she worked for Provident, the Lowell School. It was my first economic knowledges. Come from, you know, the experience of seeing how that business worked and what that meant. She was also a dinner lady for a bit. And I actually met the two of them when they were, I think, 16-year-olds at National Savings in Durham, which is a big office, was based there at the time before my dad decided to become a fireman, so a firefighter, we should say.

44:02Yeah. And, yeah, as that's changed a lot in recent years. And, yeah, I mean, so it was, I often say, you mentioned the Northeastern growing up there. I mean, I often say where I come from is the classic, you know, working-class labour communities where it's not, people talk about old and new labor, but actually people got to understand when I'm talking about classic labor, I'm talking about work being the absolute center of working class life, you know, whether that was shipbuilding and mining or public sector jobs like being in the fire brigade, but the whole of family life. I mean, we would go on, you know, we have Christmas parties that were run by the fire brigade's union.

44:40We would go sometimes on holiday with fire brigade families like that. That really did shape it. And I remember, I said this to some people yesterday, a really powerful memory is obviously by brigade, day shifts, night shifts, days off. So that actually means, you know, dad was around, you know, home a lot, you know, cooking and things like that. There was no kind of, you know, some sort of old-fashioned, you know, masculine division of labor, you know, really good role model for your dad, seeing him do that. I always remember, because what you never would want in a job like that is he didn't want your dad to be on day shift on Christmas Day.

45:16Yeah. And they, I think they still do it now, firefighters, the older people with grown-up children would volunteer to take the shifts so people with young families could be home, you know, again, it's a classic, everything in your family life is based around that. And it's, I mean, it's, I read over the summer, most of my, like, leisure reading is actually economic and history and political books, but sometimes it's too much. And I love football, obviously, I have a football manager anecdote. So I read Sir Alex Ferguson's, biography and he's got this great line in there where he says he always was amused and people would usually write things like you know huxburg has done so well for a guy in the shipbuilding part of governing he sort of thinks to himself he says you know actually how i do the job is because i can i can relate to people it doesn't matter if you're managing a pub as a professional footballer or a you know at the end of his career some of the biggest names in world football you know it it's not in spite it's because of that background and i you know that is in many ways how i feel about doing the job as an MP, but also a shadow business secretary.

46:16Yeah. His book with Michael Moritz leading is particularly good to that business and thing. He makes a very interesting argument in there about footballers not being paid enough, which is he actually makes very well, which I was not expecting when I sort of started out on it. What do you think the impact of AI will be on work and business? Have you played with it much yourself, ChatGPT? Yeah. I mean, it's, it is so significant in some ways you almost feel you have to ask, what will it not do? You know, is there anywhere it will not affect? I mean, first of all, yeah. I mean, I, I, if you ask, you know, chat GPT, write me a 500 word blog on Labour's economic policies.

47:03It's astoundingly good. I mean, it's better than some of the blogs you might read, that people have done. If you, I think I one by asking, could you write me a poem about my constituency? Could I represent five towns, Stillybridge, Hyde, Mosley, London, Dillon, and Duck and Field? It was brilliant. It was extraordinary. And obviously, we're still at the early stage. For me, all this, by the way, I stopped in the optimistic position. I mean, I talked about the mills and the history of my constituency. You know, Ludism, essentially, in a way, response to some of that smashing the looms. I mean, look, history always tells us that we're quite right to fear disruption.

47:40How we manage that has to be carefully considered. But ultimately, there's always new forms of employment that actually can be even more fulfilling and successful and innovative because we've embraced that change. And so I think we've got to see it in that way. We're right to be worried about, you know, if we got it wrong, what might it mean? I mean, it is now a situation where you can canvas people in your own constituency who've seen an image that's been manipulated and they believe it's real. Yeah. You've got to talk to them about that. It's clearly a world where you could watch a video of someone and it's not really them.

48:13Yeah. There's going to be a sort of, for politics alone, a regulatory role there and how the Electoral Commission will do that. It goes back as well to that point around, you know, ultimately, why do you want good dialogue with businesses whether you're the government or the opposition? Well, could you fix a problem like this without that genuine good faith dialogue and relationship? Could you get that right? You obviously want the UK to be a magnet for investment and a place to come and develop these ideas. But you've also got to make sure, you know, I think a well-regulated environment is attractive.

48:46It's not a burden if you get it right. It's an attractive reason to come here and do it. But I would say, try and summarise an incredibly fast-moving position. I think people here in parliament, government, first of all, they're catching up a little bit with how quickly and rapid this has been. I was talking to someone in media recently, and they're talking about video editing and how so much of it can now be done through artificial intelligence and keywords. And they said, to be honest, the only reason we're not using even more of it, because we're talking about people, a job that once took three months is now being able to be done in a few days.

49:20The only reason we're not doing more of it is we still need the senior people to ultimately review the product and they won't become senior and experienced, you know, unless they're doing some of it, you know, without the aid of that kind of technology. So it is going to be profound. But again, I always remember at university someone telling me they were going to set up a firm and go into what we would now know as search engine optimization and online advertising. And I remember thinking, all right, maybe, you know, I mean, that could decide. Even most politicians in our election will spend more online advertising than in the traditional leaflet and election address through the door.

49:57I mean, you never know. And if you approach it with optimism, acknowledge the problems, but make sure we are trying to do this in a way which recognizes that change and innovation is always the basis of progress. That's how we'll try and get it right. Have you ever had a business idea on that? many times because I get to see so many you know incredible people with their own history of business and maybe found and exited or if they have um you know currently they're talking about the stages of development they're going through you are a little bit inspired to think I you know I've got some ideas and I would like not saying we're stealing anyone's ideas by the way if we come around you're not going to see me resign from parliament to then set up in opposition to that But yeah, I mean, I think because especially I didn't plan to become an MP in 2020, maybe longer term was interested in it.

50:49But I, you know, then been almost a journey as the Labour Party has, frankly, sorted itself out in many ways and come back to be, I think, in a position to challenge for the next election. Obviously, I feel very much part of that story. In fact, coming back after the summer, some people hear someone said to me, it's like the season finale almost as we approach the end of this parliament. What's the outcome going to be? but I would like a part of my life where maybe I get a chance to try things that are a bit different you know it's a pure honour to be absolutely honour to be a member of Parliament in any circumstances but these days we do live in a world where you can think about different careers and parts of it so yeah I keep a little set of ideas that I think the world might be different in 10 years time if I was in that position then to do it but yeah I mean I admire people who take the personal risk of developing some of those ideas I think Sometimes we need to acknowledge that's, you know, it's harder to do that if you've got nothing to fall back on.

51:42Some people doing it either a stage in their life, obviously, they've got a family background that allows them to do that. So it's, you know, going back to that story about going back to law school, I mean, I had no margin for error. Yeah, yeah, right. I admire people who take that risk, but in that situation, it wouldn't have been the reasonable thing for my family. That's why at that time that was so important to go in to get that training contract and do that. if you're in a position later on in your life where you could do that i do have a bit of theory actually like a lot of entrepreneurs either come from the kind of upper classes so they can kind of like afford to take the time and the risk to do it or they come from the working classes where they have got much less to sort of lose anyway so actually you have this sort of dearth of middle class entrepreneurship but um what um what would be your um what would be your sort of dream job i'm not talking politics sometimes when i ask politicians this they get very sort of right as if I'm going to lead you into a coup on your leadership, but not doing that.

52:34But it's like, what would be your sort of dream job? Deep sea scuba diver? Yeah, I sometimes say that I used to dream of, you know, being a professional footballer and playing for Sunderland. Now I dream of being like a non-exec director of the club. Sporting physique changes over time. But I mean, I'm fascinated by the relationship between economics and sport. And Sunderland have a model at the minute where we're developing younger players and selling them on. And I think that is, you know, it's the intersection of quite a few different things, which is quite interesting. I'm also really interested in, I mean, if you look at one of the things that really changed the world.

53:10I mean, obviously, governments, politicians, there are international roles as well that have a role in that. But I also think, especially having been the Shadow City Minister for so long, you know, people who are in charge of how capital is allocated, who have a say in that, whether that's in the energy sector or fintech or whatever. That's, you know, asset management, that's a huge part of it. It's not as glamorous as, you know, sport or whatever, but that does, that is a big part of the story. I think, again, we've got to maybe tell the public more of a story about how the interplay of some of that works because the fact is, it's in a really positive way compared to 20, 30 years ago, there are a lot more countries around the world where, you know, a business might be thinking of investing capital, or make us, you know.

53:54I mean, think back to even the end of the 70s and the early 80s. I mean, you've still got the division of Europe. You've got, you know, nothing like the kind of competition from the East. That has changed a lot. So we've got to understand that. We've got to be competitive as a country in this. Completely. What's your favourite book or podcast or something you've listened to lately? So in podcast terms, I love the rest is history. yeah I have my degree was in history it was always a passion of mine I think how they how they do that and that's the output of them yeah that's a high productivity podcast uh Tom and Dominic there they deserve uh uh some productivity credit for that on books I mean I I love um political biographies um again they're dealing with similar things I mean I um probably most recent one I read was how the new one Howard Wilson that my colleague Nick Thomas Simmons oh Yeah.

54:49Wrote, I think it's, it's, it's, it's, it's not just a kind of, you know, he did this, he did that. It's a, it's a different take on what that government meant responding to those very significant challenges of, of the, of the 1970s. I just read Ed Conway's book, Material World. Again, great way to explain to people about some of the, you know, some of the processes and, you know, supply chain issues they might not have been, um, familiar with. And I also just read a book I've been meaning to read for years, which is the almost perfect people. It's a book on Scandinavia and, you know, the kind of, the perception that often exists that everything is perfect in Sweden and Norway and Denmark.

55:29And, you know, it's South Finland's education system. Everything will be fine. And it's, you know, it's a book. Someone's passion is the Scandinavian culture and, you know, the country. But you're a bit more skeptical on some of that. So, yeah, I'm always... there's so much work things you have to read but i i do obviously i have to travel between greater manchester and every week so you get some time to do some of that as well so try and there's always a few emails to reply to but try and use that time for that and actually as a discipline that's quite good yeah joey thanks so much coming on jimmy's jobs of the future it's a great pleasure