Skill Shortages in Business and Industry Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateBaroness Wilcox of Newport
Main Page: Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Wilcox of Newport's debates with the Department for Education
(5 months, 4 weeks ago)
Lords ChamberI am aware that we are doing a great deal of work to try to understand some of the issues that the noble Lord rightly raises, and which are particularly acute in some of our shortage occupations. I am not aware whether we track specifically how to encourage people to return, but I will take that back to the department.
Apprenticeship schemes are essential for developing vital skills in young people, yet in the last decade apprenticeship starts have fallen by one-third, while over £1 billion raised by the apprenticeship levy goes unspent every year. Does the Minister accept that the apprenticeship levy requires a total revision of how companies are encouraged to offer apprenticeships?
Apprenticeship starts fell because we had to do so much work with what we inherited as an apprenticeship system to make sure that we offered the quality that employers required. I do not agree that the apprenticeship levy requires a major overhaul. In the last two years, the levy has effectively been fully spent; where it is not spent by levy-paying employers, either they can spend 25% of the levy on companies within their own supply chains, so enhancing that productivity, or it can be spent by small and medium-sized enterprises. I wonder what the noble Baroness would say to them if her party was to be elected and go through with its proposed policy.