Apprenticeships

Adrian Bailey Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hayes]

My hon. Friend has a lot to be pleased about in respect of apprenticeships; as he will know, in his constituency their number has grown by 98%. I did say that I did not think there was an exact correlation between quality and the length of a course, but I think there is a relationship. By setting down a marker about the minimum length of an apprenticeship, we will drive up quality. We will certainly reassure those who are genuinely committed to the apprenticeship programme, but have doubts about the tension between quality and quantity, that we are serious about standards. That matters.

I take my hon. Friend’s point. It may be possible, particularly for older learners with greater prior attainment, to top up skills—perhaps they are moving from a level 2 to a level 3 qualification, or they already have many of the skills necessary to gain their first level 2 qualification. None the less, I still think that length matters.

I should like to put the debate in context, Madam Deputy Speaker; you would expect me to do no less. The Government’s macro-economic policy is built on twin pillars—reducing the deficit and reshaping our economy to make it more sustainable. That second core aim is served by the apprenticeship programme, because it assists in recalibrating work force skills so that productivity rises and competitiveness grows. Britain’s future chance to prosper lies in a high-tech, high-skill economy and to prosper in that way we need a high-tech, high-skill work force.

The recent announcements of reform to the programme concentrated on three areas key to the programme’s continued expansion and success: how to get more employers involved in offering apprenticeships; how to ensure that apprenticeships continue to offer people, especially young people, a firm first step on the ladder that leads to fulfilling careers and further learning; and how we ensure that the money that we spend on apprenticeships has the greatest success.

In the end, apprenticeships are jobs and the programme is demand-led. That means that the growth depends on employers coming forward to make places available. In the current economic climate jobs are in short supply, notably for young people, so the record increase in apprenticeship numbers is remarkable. Hon. Members will join me in commending the 100,000 employers that are using apprenticeships to develop work force skills—helping their businesses, but also providing opportunities for people across this country to grow their skills and improve their prospects.

Our work to recruit more employers to our cause goes on. Only this morning, I was at No. 10 Downing street briefing major employers on what apprenticeships can do for them. They were as committed to spreading opportunity and to social justice as I am.

Our objective is to improve and strengthen the programme even further so that more individuals and employers can access the benefits of high-quality apprenticeships. Overall, employer ownership of vocational skills is the key to our approach. This ambition informs all our priorities in moving forward: first, by reducing bureaucracy to an absolute minimum, speeding up processes and boosting employer engagement; secondly, by safeguarding quality, raising standards, and enhancing the reputation of the apprenticeship brand; and thirdly, by focusing future growth where the returns and benefits are greatest, including growth sectors of the economy, small and medium-sized enterprises, young people and new employees.

SMEs tell us that they still face considerable hurdles in taking on apprentices, and we have taken a serious look at what we can do to help to remove the barriers that they face. This has rightly been raised on the Floor of the House by Members on both sides and in all parties. I can announce today that, first, we will bring reduce to one month the time it takes for an employer to advertise an apprenticeship vacancy, including identifying the provider and completing an agreement on a training package between the employer and the provider; and secondly, we will remove all health and safety requirements that go beyond what health and safety legislation requires. From 1 January, employers that meet the Health and Safety Executive’s requirements as set out in “Health and safety made simple” will be deemed to provide a satisfactory level of compliance. We will also work with the insurance industry to encourage an approach that is proportionate to risks, and with training providers to develop new service standards for supporting SMEs to be included in all contracts for apprenticeships delivered from March 2012.

In addition, we are committed, in a significant new pilot programme, to taking radical steps to give businesses direct access to up to £250 million of public funding for training and apprenticeships over two years. This pilot is a key part of the Government’s growth review. It will route funding directly to businesses, will be more efficient than current arrangements, and will give businesses real purchasing power in the schools marketplace to secure the support that they need.

[Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Hayes]

I happily give way to the Chairman of the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee.

[Mr Bailey]

I thank the Minister for his customary courtesy in giving way. I welcome the announcement about provider and employer engagement, and speeding that up, but will he clarify whether there are any restrictions regarding a member of a board of a provider company being precluded from being a member of a board of a user company?

[Mr Hayes]

The answer is that I do not know; in these circumstances, it is always right to be straightforward. Because I know that the hon. Gentleman takes these matters seriously and is committed to getting this right, as I am, I will take his point away and look at it. He is arguing that there might be a conflict of interest in terms of provider and employer, and he is right to say that there should be a proper separation. However, as he will know, it is often the case in large companies that the training wing of the company provides the pedagogy associated with an apprenticeship while the apprentice is engaged in the work-based training in the same company, though in a different part of it. I would qualify his query with that caveat. None the less, I will take another look at the subject and will be more than happy to respond to him directly.

The pilot that I described will involve employers being asked to demonstrate how public funding will be used to leverage private investment and commitment to raising skill levels in their sectors or supply chains. As we grow the apprenticeship scheme, it is very important to take advantage of the value chains associated with our major corporates—their supply chains and their distribution chains, where they exist. Typically, Governments have spent insufficient time considering how that might work in the light of the well-established nature of those relationships and the dependence of large organisations on myriad smaller companies, the fragility of which, by their very nature, is possibly injurious to the interests of those corporates.

For example, major suppliers in the automotive industry tend to have very large numbers of organisations with which they deal commercially in their locality, some of which are vital to the effectiveness of such large organisations. It is vital, in their interests and in ours, that we do more to ensure that those relationships allow us to grow the apprenticeship system within SMEs. It may be of value for large companies to absorb some of the bureaucracy and some of the cost, and certainly to absorb some of the management associated with seeding apprenticeships in their value chain. Bidding for the employer-led pilot will formally be launched in the new year.

Above all else, my advocacy of practical learning and my faith in apprenticeships are driven not by economic imperative—not merely by utility—but by social purpose. I said earlier that for too long the myth that only through academic accomplishment can a sense of worth be achieved has been perpetuated by those who themselves have travelled a gilded path to academia. Now it is time once again to recognise what Ruskin and Morris knew—that all those with practical tastes and talents, with technical vocational aptitudes, deserve their chance of glittering prizes too. This is not just because of the relationship between craft and beauty and, in turn, between beauty and truth, but because for society to cohere we must promote the common good through a shared appreciation of what each of can achieve. All feel valued when each feels valued. Given that inequality is the inevitable consequence for a free economy in a free society, only through social mobility can a communal sense of fairness be achieved. A society that is unequal and rigid is bound to be unable to secure the ties of shared identity, as invisible and yet as strong as the heartstrings of love.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)]

In opening the debate, the Minister said that he has put apprenticeships at the heart of this Government’s policy, and I welcome that. Nobody would in any way decry the commitment to and passion for this issue. However, when someone makes such a bold assertion, they have to produce statistics to demonstrate that the Government are succeeding, and that is at the heart of the Government’s problem on this issue. The statistics may demonstrate a big increase in the number of apprenticeships, but if we drill down and look at what is behind the statistics, we find that it does not necessarily indicate a commensurate increase in skills or value for money. Comments have already been made about the huge increase in the number of post-24 apprenticeships and some of the poor-quality provision for 16 to 18-year-olds. I commend the Minister for his comments about trying to improve the quality of provision, but they are a tacit admission by the Government that their policies so far are not actually delivering what they are intended to deliver.

Talk about apprenticeships is good rhetoric, as it chimes with the Government’s assertion that we need to rebalance the economy, and it provides a justification for pointing out an alternative educational route for those denied access to higher education—that denial is what the Government’s higher education policies are likely to produce. Clearly what is available is not actually going to deliver the agenda that individuals need and the economy needs.

I must pose a rhetorical question: what actually comprises an apprenticeship? We can debate the definition, but this contains certain key elements. It must be a work-based course to improve skills and employability, and it should be undertaken over a sufficient period to be meaningful. At the end of the course, the apprentice should qualify for a position superior to the one that he or she had when they started the apprenticeship, either in the same company or another. The level of employment post-apprenticeship should be a measurement of the success of the apprenticeship. Most importantly, the individual who has undertaken the apprenticeship must believe that they have enhanced their skills as a result. Unfortunately, the evidence so far is that a great number who have taken the current apprenticeships do not feel that way and have not had opportunities open to them as a result.

I have evidence to suggest that young people recruited for 12-week apprenticeships have ended up doing only five weeks, with a significant element of that time taken up with stuffing envelopes. The Government have paid for that as an apprenticeship course, which poses serious questions about the value for money that we are getting, the experience that we are offering to young people and the damage to the apprenticeship brand that could arise from it.

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

I have been listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman’s remarks. He seemed to suggest that the previous Government’s university access policy was delivering something superior and he seems to be denigrating the status of apprenticeships. Is not half the problem that people talk down apprenticeships, which denigrates their status—that status is very important in encouraging people to take up apprenticeships in place of going to university—and delivers an outcome that is no better?

[Mr Bailey]

I am glad the hon. Gentleman made that intervention, because it allows me to point out that under the previous Labour Government there was a huge increase in the number of people going to university, including a fourfold increase in the number going from my constituency, and there was also a fourfold increase in the number taking apprenticeships. By and large, we find that those apprenticeships were far superior to the those being classified as “apprenticeships” under this Government. As has been said on a number of occasions, the huge number of apprenticeships for over-24s is just a rebranding of the Train to Gain programme. They would not have been included in the previous Government’s statistics on apprenticeships, so to compare one with the other is not to compare like with like. I believe that in the retail sector more than 70% of those who get an apprenticeship level 2 qualification are in existing employment, so does that really meet the test of improved professional qualifications and employability? I doubt it.

[Mr Hayes]

The hon. Gentleman is the Chairman of the Select Committee and I know that he would not want to present a parody of what is happening. We are determined to deliver quality, but I cannot imagine that he is saying that apprenticeships should not be a vehicle for retraining and upskilling and improving the prospects for existing workers. If he was saying that, it would be an extraordinary claim.

[Mr Bailey]

I was not going to make that claim. In fact, the Minister raises an important point. I would not in any way decry the upskilling of existing workers, and Train to Gain was very successful in doing that, but whether we want to call it “apprenticeships” is debateable. Perhaps we do, perhaps we do not, but statistics cannot be traded with the previous Government’s apprenticeship statistics when such people were not included in them. That is my essential point. I am not decrying in any way the benefits of in-work training, but there is a genuine issue with measuring the enhanced employability of people who have undergone that training and the amount of money invested in it.

Let me consider the Government’s approach to the education maintenance allowance. One reason for scrapping it was the alleged deadweight cost of the fact that many young people would have taken courses irrespective of whether that allowance had been paid. The same sort of detailed scrutiny must take place of some of the post-24 training to ensure that we are not spending a vast sum of money—there is a lot of money involved—on providing people with training that they would have had anyway. A secondary issue is the fact that if we can retain the level of skills enhancement we have already and refocus some of the money that would be spent on it on other areas, we might well be able to enhance other apprenticeship provision in other areas, which is equally important.

I could go on for a very long time about this—[Interruption.] But not today. My Committee will carry out a detailed inquiry, but I conclude by saying that we should get away from the rhetoric of apprenticeships and talk about general skills. There are a range of skill packages for different groups of different ages and different skill levels and we must ensure that they are supported rather than talk all the time about apprenticeships—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order.