Labour pledged to enable free adult education retraining.

Labour’s shadow education secretary, Angela Rayner, announced on Tuesday (November 12) that they plan to “throw open the door” and enable adults to return to study.

The party is promising a £3billion plan to offer adults in England free access to retraining if an adult wish to revisit education.

Mrs Rayner announced: “Labour will throw open the door for adults to study, whether they want to change career, are made redundant or didn’t get the qualifications they needed when they were younger.

“For many, adult education is too expensive, too time-consuming or too difficult to get into. People have been held back for too long. We will make free education a right to ensure we have the skills we need to allow our economy to rise to the opportunities of the future.”

Similarly, the Lib Dems promised on November 11 that a £10,00 training grant would be issued to every adult in England, which has been titled a “skills wallet”.

In July 2019, the Conservatives also introduced a National Retraining Scheme which hopes to help adults whose jobs may be at risk due to AI technology and automation systems making certain careers redundant.

In response to the Labour announcement, Gareth Thomas, MP for Harrow West, said: “As we adapt to changes resulting from automation across all sectors of our economy many of us will have to attain new skills throughout our working life to re-train for new careers or up-skill as we progress in our careers.

"Labour’s plans to ensure every adult has the support and opportunity to return to education will go a long way to solve the severe skills shortage we currently have in the UK”

Pamela Fitzpatrick, Labour’s candidate in Harrow East, also added her opinions to the announcement. She said: “People in Harrow have been denied adult education – so often it’s costly or difficult to access. That’s why the next Labour government’s going to throw open the door to lifelong learning.

“Our economy is transforming so rapidly, and governments have got to step up and support workers in these turbulent times.”

This announcement adds to the Labour pledges to also scrap university tuition fees, bring back university maintenance grants and other educative measures.

Hussain Akhtar, a retired school inspector in Harrow who participated in over 300 Ofsted inspections, added: “It can only be good that Labour is committed to put vocational education on a par with university degrees.

“Students need to be reassured of their success and where conventional education is not attractive, many Ofsted inspections found vocational education being most effective.”