Welcome back to a brand new season of the Skills World Live Radio Show! Thank you for sticking with the number one podcast in FE.

In this episode, presenter, Tom Bewick, explores why we have a skills crisis in the UK and what can be done about it.

After all, you can’t read a newspaper or switch on a news channel at the moment without one story or another about supply chain shortages, caused by not enough HGV drivers, abattoir workers and even bricklayers.

The skills crisis comes at a time when various business lobby groups have been calling on government to relax immigration rules which will allow more overseas visas to be issued, now that the UK has ended unfettered immigration and free movement with the European Union.

In our Head to Head segment this week Tom talks to the former Labour Treasury minister and chief economist at the Institute of Directors, Kitty Usher. He is joined by Viren Patel, the Open University’s business development director, who has teamed up with the IoD to produce the Annual Business Barometer — a handy snapshot of employer sentiment on workforce skills.

In The Final Take this week, Tom talks to Baroness Fox of Buckley (Claire Fox) about the recent Battle of Ideas Festival in Westminister, organised by the Academy of Ideas; and her thoughts on the Skills Bill, which came back to the House of Lords this week at Report Stage.

We're now taking a short break for the half term and will return with episode 2 of the new season on the 5 November!