Numeracy for Life Committee

26 March 2026

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Numeracy for Life Committee Thu, 26 Mar 2026 House of Lords

00:04 - 01:02

Speaker 1

Morning to our witnesses. Thank you both very much for joining us today. I'm particularly pleased to have two large employers to talk to us because I I my own instinct is that this is a drag on productivity, this problem with numeracy, but I'd be very interested to hear from you both today. So we've all got some questions to ask, and I will open the batting. So if you could be relatively brief in your answers, but each of you answer on each question so we get your both of your perspectives.

So I'm gonna start and my question really is what do you think the impact of low numeracy is on productivity and economic growth and employee development and do you see a key skills gap in numeracy for people that you are either hiring or trying to hire? So Neil, why don't you open for us, please?

01:02 - 01:44

Speaker 2

Yes, absolutely. Thank you. So by way of context, Seven Trent operates in The Midlands, and I think the stat for The Midlands is 53% of people come out with less than a grade four in maths. And so when that presents itself in the workplace, we see if I take our apprenticeship intake, about twenty percent join without any qualification, and ten percent are considered to have low numeracy skills, so that of an 11 year old. And I guess what does that mean in reality?

Things like telling the time is problematic, which is a problem in terms of shift patterns and working to shifts. Doing basic calculations

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