Apprenticeships: Training Providers

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

The noble Baroness makes an interesting point but we believe that there is enough flexibility in the system. A lot of work is being done with the Institute for Apprenticeships and with employers on the design of apprenticeships to ensure that the approach and the job descriptions are correct for the individual sectors. I know that the noble Baroness has a lot of experience in the creative sectors, which we are looking at very closely.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that in Bradford a social housing association runs an excellent training scheme for the building trades? It took 10 people this year and has had 400 applications. When there is so much unfulfilled demand—particularly from what we have to call the white working class—obviously there is still something wrong. I am told that in Yorkshire the big building companies still prefer to recruit already-trained people from outside Britain rather than go to the expense and trouble of doing their own training. That is clearly a major problem. Can the Government assure us that the new apprenticeship levy will push companies like that into training our own people?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

I hope I can give the noble Lord that assurance. The construction sector is particularly important. Regarding the temporary drop that we have seen, 3,000 apprenticeship vacancies have been posted this month by 40 employers. So I think this comes back to the point that employers are taking their time—which they need to do—working with HMRC and the Treasury to bed in these new changes.