Lord Sugar
Main Page: Lord Sugar (Crossbench - Life peer)
Lord Sugar
Will the noble Baroness allow me to go off the rails for one moment and generalise on apprenticeships overall? The coalition Government have announced that they will provide 75,000 new places between now and 2014-15, which seem to be focused on adults. There does not seem to be any other kind of provision for 16 to 18 year-olds. But more to the point—
Lord Sugar
The question is coming. I have been asking my colleagues here why I seem to attract heckling. More to the point, the Government have decided to axe Train to Gain, which provided 575,000 jobs, and the future jobs fund, which provided 100,000 jobs to people who were out of work for more than a year. My question is—
Lord Sugar
If we bundle all these into some form of initiative for providing work for the young and those who are out of work, what is the net reduction in initiatives that has resulted from their cuts?
Baroness Wilcox
My Lords, the number of new apprentices in this past year is 279,000 of whom quite a few are very young. As the noble Lord knows, we have a very special pay arrangement which was set up by his Government to ensure that we attract youngsters. I am so delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Sugar, has asked a question because it has given me the opportunity to say once again how marvellous his programme is for attracting apprentices into business, but that the aggressive tone he uses on the programme might not be attracting people into nursing and the quieter causes that we still so very much need in this country, including the youngsters to whom he is referring.