Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton and John Hayes

Monday 16th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hayes]

One of the first things I did when I became a Minister was to insist that apprentices should be employed, in order to end programme-led apprenticeships. They were the hallmark of the previous Government’s approach, as was recently highlighted in the programme referred to a few moments ago.

The letter that I am holding was sent to me, and it says:

“We warmly welcome the Government’s focus on Apprenticeships and its efforts to guarantee”

apprenticeship “quality”. It is signed by some of Britain’s leading companies and by the TUC. So business, unions and the Government are coming together—only the Labour party is standing apart.

[Mark Lancaster (Milton Keynes North) (Con)]

17. What steps he is taking to speed up the adoption system.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton and John Hayes

Thursday 8th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hayes]

I take the view that Government have a role and that procurement has a role as well. For that reason I have established a ministerial champions group for apprenticeships involving 14 Departments, we have explored the development of kitemarking for good employers who use apprenticeships and supply the public sector, and we have provided streamlined informational skills for companies that want to supply Government.

My hon. Friend has been a great champion of apprenticeships, and has even taken on an apprentice himself. Let me again urge all Members to take on their own apprentices.

[Mark Lancaster (Milton Keynes North) (Con)]

16. What plans he has to encourage small and medium-sized businesses to offer apprenticeships.

[The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)]

As you can see, Mr Speaker, I am irrepressible.

We have recently announced a new financial incentive of £1,500, which will help up to 40,000 small employers who have not previously engaged in the programme to take on a young apprentice. We are taking radical steps to speed up and simplify the process for employers, and to remove unnecessary paperwork and bureaucracy.

[Mark Lancaster]

While the Minister’s talents are obvious, some of us have hidden talents. I, for instance, am a pyrotechnician, and ran the family firework company for many years. We were always keen to take on apprentices, but it was hard to keep them in a long-term skilled job, and the paperwork involved in taking them on in the first place was very extensive. What can be done to help the situation?

Building a High-Skilled Economy

Debate between Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton and John Hayes

Thursday 17th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Mr John Hayes)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of building a high- skilled economy.

It is a delight, having spent so many years in the shadows, to come into the light and be able to speak in this House as the new Minister. Some hon. Members will have read today in the press of my endorsement for floristry and dance. I am wearing this perfectly coloured co-ordinated buttonhole to illustrate the first, but the House, and you in particular, Mr Deputy Speaker, will be relieved to know that I shall not be illustrating the second, at least not by example.

The performance in office of the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), once the man who called the tune, was rather more of a conga than a quickstep. You know the conga, I have no doubt, Mr Deputy Speaker. It comprises a group of hapless individuals linked by routine, hopelessly following one another on a journey to nowhere.

Adult learning is a subject that inspires in those hon. Members present—I know this is true of hon. Members across the Chamber—emotional attachment and personal commitment. At the same time, it is not a subject in which anyone or any party can claim a monopoly of wisdom, which is why I am interested to hear views from across the Chamber. However, a new Government offer a new chance of a fresh start, the opportunity to bring change and hope to adult learners. However, not everyone realises that there has been a change. Sitting in my office the other day in my new Department, I was surprised to receive an out-of-the-blue phone call from someone asking for Mandy. I had to break the news to him that Mandy had moved on. To paraphrase Barry Manilow, “Oh Mandy, well you came and you took without giving…but I sent you away.”

Lord Mandelson was right in at least one important respect. He made the economic case for skills. The economic case for skills was by far the strongest case made by the previous Government. It is significant, of course—indeed it is vital—but it is not the only case for skills. The economic case, which I shall deal with first, has been thrown into sharp relief by the economic turbulence, by the rising levels of unemployment and falling levels of hope, especially among young people, and by the growing numbers of employers finding it difficult to stay in business. It will continue to occupy a prominent place in public discourse as we move out of recession and towards the renewed growth about which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State spoke recently at the Cass business school.

[Mark Lancaster (Milton Keynes North) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Hayes]

I happily give way to my hon. Friend, who has been such a resolute champion of the Open university in his constituency, which does so much to foster learning.

[Mark Lancaster]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I should like to invite him to join me in paying tribute to the Open university. The one thing that has not changed in recent times is the contribution that that institution has made to lifelong learning.