Apprenticeships

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

My Lords, I will take advantage of the fact that we have not exhausted the time. This is a really key issue. I apologise if I sounded negative. I do not want to be negative but just want to get the Government to recognise the size and scale of the problem. Even though the Minister says that youth unemployment is coming down, as I am sure she knows, in some parts of the country it is not and the levels are very high, so I want to try to inject a sense of urgency into the situation.

The Minister did not really respond to the point that I made about there still being only a very small number of businesses participating in apprenticeships. What positive steps are the Government going to take? For instance, addressing the very worthwhile point made by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, about heritage craft skills, the difficulty with those small businesses—sometimes it is just one person on their own or a small group—is, first, that they face what they see as an administrative burden and, secondly, that they worry about whether they can carry an apprentice and create that job. That is why, again, they need to be encouraged to create their own little hubs and group training associations, where some of that administrative burden can be shared.

I am critical because, as I have said, there is a danger that in the first attempt we are driving up volume rather than quality as well, although that is being addressed, which I welcome. Interestingly, one my noble friend Lord Grocott’s point, I met a young apprentice accountant as part of the Crossrail scheme. When we talk about apprenticeships, we seem to forget that what they involve is much more wide-ranging than manual skills: there are over 200 apprenticeship frameworks. We have gone well beyond what used to be regarded as the traditional route. In relation to the higher level—

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I think the House has been very tolerant. The noble Lord is speaking in Back-Bench time.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

I did wait to see whether there were any further Back-Bench speakers and there were not, so I took the opportunity. If there are any, I will give way. However, as there are not, I will just use the opportunity that we have.

On higher-level apprenticeships, again, there is a view that it is an either/or choice: you either take an apprenticeship or you go to university. However, it should not be an either/or choice because, as we know, higher-level apprenticeships can lead to university degrees. I will end on that.