English Apprenticeships (Consequential Amendments to Primary Legislation) Order 2015

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)]

My Lords, I have nothing to complain about in the substance of what the Minister has just indicated. Raising the participation age makes sense. However, I have recently expressed my concern in at least one debate about the recent Ofsted report which said that a number of apprenticeships were failing to meet standards. That should be of real concern to a Government who I know are committed to apprenticeships and to raising their quality. The problem is that this is the old story about checking against delivery. There has never been a perfect situation where all apprenticeships were right, but the report from Ofsted is worrying. It distinguished between the kind of apprenticeships that you get in retail and social care, and those in engineering and other types of apprenticeships. It said that most problems were in those to which I referred first—in retail and social care.

I was discussing this issue recently with someone who has experience in this field. They told me that, for instance, in some cases the amount of time that training providers have for each apprenticeship is pitifully low. I cannot remember whether they were saying that it was an hour a week or an hour a month, but it was very low. If we are serious about improving the standards of apprenticeships and the perception that people have of them—that they are just as good a route as an academic one—we really cannot afford to be complacent.

I also raised on a previous occasion what was perhaps an even more worrying occurrence, where an apprentice was sent out one day to work in a factory and never returned home, as a result of an appalling industrial accident. I had an exchange of correspondence with the Minister but I cannot say that it made me feel any more sanguine about the treatment of young apprentices. He said that there is a duty on the employer: well, we know that. But surely there is also a duty on us all, and on the training provider, to ensure that if they send a young person to a particular location, they will have checked out whether the employer is reliable and responsible. I do not expect the Minister to give me all the answers today because this is not an easy problem to solve.

To sum up, we must ensure the quality of apprenticeships; not just talking about it, but ensuring that we have a system and a process in place so that we can say with confidence to young people and their parents that when they embark on an apprenticeship, not only will the quality of the training be first class but the safety of the young person will be assured. I think that we have a lot to do in this area. If we are serious about pushing the target up to 3 million—I assume that the Government are serious—which is very ambitious, we should note that a number of people have expressed their concerns by saying: never mind the quantity, it is the quality that we have to ensure. I am just as keen as the Government to increase the number of apprenticeships, but I would like an assurance that the Minister will check that we have put the right procedures in place to ensure both the quality and the safety of apprenticeships.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green, is of course second to none in his support for and encouragement of apprenticeships. Next week, we will come to a very substantial discussion of apprenticeships during our consideration in Committee of the Enterprise Bill, of which this order may be an hors d’oeuvre, and maybe not even that. All I would like to be certain of, and I am sure that my noble friend will be able to give me this assurance, is that what we are doing in this piece of legislation will not inhibit or restrict our debates on the clauses that relate to apprenticeships in the Enterprise Bill, which I suspect we will get to on either Monday or Wednesday of next week in Committee.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord who has just spoken paid tribute to my noble friend Lord Young’s continuing interest in and support for the apprenticeship movement. His words carry much weight in these areas. I have only four small questions for the noble Earl in what I take to be more of an amuse bouche than a first course, because we will be returning to these matters in the Enterprise Bill next Wednesday—if we make a little more progress than we did yesterday.

The first question is on almost the same point that has just been raised, which is that in this statutory instrument we are closer to finding an approved English apprenticeship only to see it removed and replaced by the statutory English apprenticeship in the Enterprise Bill, although obviously the dates will vary. When he comes to respond, perhaps the noble Earl could give us a sense of how this is going to segue from one to the other and what changes there will be in practice in terms of what the Bill says and what is currently meant by this statutory instrument. I suspect that that is a slightly longer piece than will be possible in this discussion, so I am happy for him to write to me.

My second point is that in paragraph 10 of the Explanatory Memorandum on the impact, the statement is made that:

“A separate full regulatory impact assessment has not been prepared for this consequential instrument because no impact on the private, public or voluntary sectors is foreseen separate to that already covered by the substantive provisions in the Act”.

That is fine, but unfortunately I am not very good at keeping my files and I could not find the impact assessment for the original Act, and clearly there is a hint here that there were some costs as a result of this change. Perhaps the noble Earl could dig it out—I see a little bit of panic behind him, so perhaps it will take a few days. However, if at some point I could have some indication of what the costs would be, I would be grateful for that.

My third question reinforces the point about quality that was made by my noble friend Lord Young. The Ofsted report on apprenticeships is extremely damning in many ways. It would be interesting to hear the reflections of the noble Earl on what lies behind the points made by my noble friend, which is that we can change the title all we want, but if we do not raise standards or change the nature of what is happening, we will be in trouble. I would like some assurances that the simple change in nomenclature, which is what appears to be happening here, is in fact covered by more action on the part of his department in terms of trying to ensure that standards in apprenticeship training rise and will indeed, it is hoped, eventually get to the point where we are talking about parity of esteem between the academic and the non-academic or vocational routes so that we can in truth have a fully integrated system of further education, complementing those who choose the academic route, but also open to those who wish to switch between the two strains.

The final point is my familiar trope on implementation dates. I appreciate that we are talking about a minor change that is consequent on a piece of legislation which is soon to be overtaken, but the Government have signed up to common commencement dates for the implementation of activities that will put a burden on business. This statutory instrument appears to come in 21 days after the order is made, which presumably will be tomorrow or the day after, and therefore will come in in late October, which is not one of the two commencement dates, which are, as I am sure the noble Earl will be aware, 1 October and 6 April. Why was this not brought forward only a matter of days to 1 October? Given its simplicity and apparently innocuousness in terms of changing things, why on earth did the department not get its act together for 1 October? Given that it is inconsequential and will shortly be overtaken by another Act, why did the noble Earl not wait until 6 April?