Oral Answers to Questions

Alun Cairns Excerpts

Monday 12th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon]

Just to be clear on BTECs, many BTECs will remain and people will be able to do them with A-levels. We are getting rid of BTECs that either have low outcomes, significantly overlap with the T-level, or have very low uptake. We have also introduced the T-level transition year so that people who want to prepare for T-levels are able to do so.

[Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)]

T7. Few Members have done more to support and drive up the standards of apprenticeships than my right hon. Friend, the Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education. The hospitality sector is keen to continue to work with him and the Department in order to bring people into apprenticeships and to drive up the standards further. People in the sector believe that they can achieve more with some elements of flexibility and by continually evolving the policy. Is my right hon. Friend prepared to engage with the sector in order to see how we can work with it?

[Robert Halfon]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his kind remarks. We have already introduced flexibilities with the apprenticeship levy. As I know how deeply concerned he is about the hospitality industry, I can tell him that I have visited Greene King and seen how brilliantly it uses the levy to employ hundreds of apprentices. Of course, where we can, we will work to ensure that this carries on across the hospitality industry, which he so ably represents.