Apprenticeships

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 26th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, I must declare an interest because I am running a social enterprise in this patch, the Good Careers Guide, which you can bing if you do not want to google. We have been having a wonderful time with companies. There is such a spirit of collaboration abroad—with them, with their organisations and with schools organisations, too—and there is a real determination to get together and solve the problems of how kids comprehend careers, of how businesses get on with schools and of how apprenticeships become valued as a decent alternative to academic education. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Best, that the construction industry is as enthusiastic as any other, and I shall look forward to his conference and hope that we may end up as part of it.

To return to the subject in hand, which is on how to increase the number and quality of apprenticeships for 16 to 18 year-olds, I think the answers are about information, appreciation and support. It is very hard within the context of a school to find that out what 16-to-18 apprenticeships are out there. We need a place where people can go to find out—but not, as the Deputy Prime Minister said, a UCAS, which is a horrible, inward-facing and unco-operative organisation. What we need is something that is facing outward and that sees its business as running an API, not a fortress, so that all sorts of institutions that have contacts with young people can easily get at the information on apprenticeships which they need to advise them. I think that would be a great way forward and I very much hope, if Mr Clegg has anything to do with it, that is the direction that he eventually takes.

Second is appreciation. There is a general feeling that apprenticeships are of mixed quality. That is not good. That is how we came into the business of the Good Careers Guide, taking the genetics of the Good Schools Guide and seeing what we could do for apprenticeships. It is proving immensely popular with companies, I am delighted to say. They really see the need to be seen as quality providers. It is important to parents particularly, and to others who are advising young people, that they understand where an apprenticeship leads to. How will it be rated by other employers once it is completed? Where will it lead to in terms of a career? The progression is immensely important, as the noble Lord, Lord Young, commented.

In that context, it is important to say to the Government that they are on the wrong track when they say that,

“once the reformed GCSEs are implemented, all apprentices will use GCSEs … to meet the English and maths requirements”.

What is important is context. If you are in an apprenticeship, what is motivating you is the context. The mathematics and English you use must fit in with that context. English and maths GCSEs are designed to move people on to A-levels; they are not designed for the whole variety of employments and apprenticeships that are out there. What is important is that the English and maths that one learns in an apprenticeship is part of a progression which leads—as, again, the noble Lord, Lord Young, said—to recognised professional qualifications. The English and maths should be sufficient for that, but there should be no barriers on the progression of apprentices. They should be able to move on to degrees and what they have achieved as an apprentice should be recognised as sufficient for that. I hope that the NHS will wake up to the idea that you can start as an apprentice and end up as a nurse, which does not seem too hard to ask when you can start with Barclays as a NEET who has just come from jail and end up as a bank manager. There are companies out there which take progression seriously, and it is time that our public sector did so, too. We must pay apprentices properly; they should not be seen as a source of cheap labour but should receive proper remuneration.

We should also concentrate on support. Most of our employment comes from small and medium-sized enterprises, but it is difficult for them to take on the bureaucracy and the responsibility of an apprenticeship. The big companies can manage it—they have big HR departments, which can do what is required. We need to build up for smaller companies a structure of training providers which not only provide the training but do the pastoral care, too, looking after every aspect of the apprentice’s needs. The SME will then be able to concentrate on giving them a job and will not be asked to do things which go beyond its capacity. That is happening: PricewaterhouseCoopers organises it for the smaller companies and the financial industry; several of the sector skills councils have similar schemes; and QA, which is one of the training providers, is in that business. We are beginning to see that happening, and it needs to happen much more widely.

To quote one of the senior executives of a company whose training provision we were reviewing: “Apprentices are a total delight. They are quickly very productive, excited, eager, and bring new life to the business”. If tired old people like us can be cheered up by taking on apprentices, let us do more of that.