Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, whether his Department has made an estimate of the potential number of jobs which will be replaced by automation over the next two decades.

The Department has not made a specific forecast of how many jobs will be replaced (or how many additional jobs will be created) over the next two decades due to automation. However, the Government’s Horizon Scanning Programme exploring the impacts of automation on the labour market, and engaging with our international partners.

Government is taking action to provide individuals with the skills that will help prepare them for changes to the labour market, such as the new school computing curriculum, developing new apprenticeship standards, growing the apprenticeships programme, and introducing the Institute for Coding.