The new MP for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire has an alien in his office.
Ian Sollom is the newly appointed universities and skills spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats. He also has a PhD in astrophysics—which might explain the inflatable spaceship in the room, flanked by two green extraterrestrials. (The decorations were, his assistant tells me, for a festive office crawl.)
But, for Sollom, Westminster seems to be the final frontier. While Labour has listed economic growth at the top of its agenda, he argues that his policy area still isn’t being prioritised. “The skills part of that should be absolutely critical to that growth mission”, he says.
“In the King’s Speech, we were promised a Skills England bill—but what’s come to the Lords has been a ‘dismantling of IfATE’ bill [IfATE being the now-abolished Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education], and not really anything about Skills England at all”.
He feels that Skills England will be more effective if it’s not a “top-down [body] telling different areas what they should be doing”, but instead is ready to collaborate with local authorities.
As a former district councillor, Sollom thinks local government should have more say in how skills funding is allocated, and that more “joined-up thinking” is needed between local employment opportunities and the training offered by further education colleges.
In real terms, funding for further education has fallen significantly since austerity, with sixth-form colleges hit the hardest. Despite recent funding increases, total spending on adult skills and apprenticeships is still around 23 per cent lower than 2009-10 levels.
Pressures on universities are also increasing. The government is “looking to the university sector to improve its efficiency… but at the moment, the framework and the regulation isn’t really there to help them with that.”
Education is the area where the Lib Dems have historically lost the most trust. When the party joined the 2010 coalition government with the Conservatives, it notoriously betrayed students on tuition fees.
“Ultimately, the party in 2010 pledged to deliver something that its leaders didn’t really believe in… we need to make sure that we don’t get ourselves into that position again.” He thinks that the 2024 election results show that the party has come a long way. “The fact that we did well in the election last year shows that we have worked hard to win people’s trust back. We have to continue to earn and demonstrate that trust.”
The mood among the Liberal Democrats, now 72 MPs strong, is still “buoyant”, he says. There’s a “lot of energy in the parliamentary party… We are still very, very excited by the position that we’re in.”
Sollom says his party’s role should now be to make sure the government delivers on its promises—for example, by scrutinising Labour’s plans to reform the apprenticeship levy. He wants to ensure the funding is actually spent on skills development, rather than hundreds of millions being “clawed back” by the Treasury. “I think we have been striking the right tone of holding Labour to account, being that sort of serious opposition, rather than a confrontational opposition”.
But for a party trying to present themselves as “serious opposition”, some haven’t forgotten the gimmicky stunts from their last election campaign. “Ed Davey isn’t jet-skiing into the chamber,” he objects. “If you can draw attention to issues around sewage by falling into a lake repeatedly, why not?”
Will Sollom be falling into a lake any time soon?
“It wouldn’t be for me… I’ve seen the pollution numbers on the [River] Cam.”
Despite being vocal on policy, and in a stronger position than any UK third party in the last century, Sollom still feels that the Lib Dems are overlooked.
“The focus still seems to be very much on Reform and Nigel Farage in terms of column inches… but I wonder whether actually we’re happy to be a little bit under the radar, because if Kemi Badenoch goes chasing the Reform vote, it probably does continue to leave room for the Lib Dems to prosper.”
For the next five years, on skills policy and in the chamber, the party will have to be strategic. “In politics, there’s a lot you’re just not in control of… but what you can do is position yourself.” For Sollom, this shouldn’t be too hard. It’s not rocket science.
