Creative Industries: Apprenticeship Levy

Lord Fox Excerpts

Tuesday 4th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

We absolutely want to take account of roles such as masons, so there are different flexibilities in the apprenticeship programme. There are the one-year and three-year schemes and 20% off-the-job training, so they get to a really good standard of apprenticeship when they come out.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister will recall that last year Peter Bazalgette led a review on how best to frame the apprentice levy to drive the creative sector. In an Answer to my noble friend Lord Foster, the Minister undertook to read that report and perhaps take some lessons from it. Now, nearly a year on, will the Minister tell us what lessons were learned by his department from the Bazalgette report and what it is doing differently now from what it was doing nearly a year ago?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

There is a lot more that we are doing for the creative industries regarding the apprenticeship scheme. For example, we are working very closely with industry bodies such as the Creative Industries Council, Creative & Cultural Skills and ScreenSkills, so on the back of the Bazalgette report we are looking in greater detail at what more we can do in this important sector for the UK.