Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Amanda Milling Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Amanda Milling (Cannock Chase) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important debate. I wish to pick up on a few points relating to employment and apprenticeships.

First, I was pleased to see that in June we had another fall in unemployment in my constituency. As I mentioned in last week’s Budget debate, it is clear that the measures we have taken and continue to take, such as the benefits cap, the national living wage and the changes to the personal allowance, are encouraging people back into work and making work pay.

Apprenticeships play a key role in ensuring that our young people get into work and, importantly, acquire the skills they need to progress in life. In the previous Parliament, 2 million apprenticeships were created, 5,000 of which were in my constituency. In the past year alone, 11,000 apprenticeships have been created across Staffordshire. I am very much looking forward to attending the first apprenticeship graduation ceremony this Wednesday. I welcome the target of 3 million apprenticeships, as promised in our manifesto, which is now set out in clause 2 of the Bill.

There are three key points that I wish to make. First, we need to promote apprenticeships. As I said last week, I welcome the local campaign Ladder for Staffordshire. On its first day alone, it created 50 new apprenticeships. From my own experience, I know that we need to be better at connecting businesses, training providers and apprentices to ensure that all their needs are met and to mitigate any risks of an apprenticeship not working. Sometimes when such a partnership works, it happens by default rather than by design, with businesses stumbling across the right training providers and apprentices rather than using co-ordinated services, so there is more that we can do in this area.

I also feel that we need to do more in schools to direct young people to apprenticeships. It is important that vocational qualifications are seen to be as valuable as academic ones. We need to ensure that young people are directed to the right qualification for them. I note that the 3 million apprenticeships target is for England only. I would be interested to know what the targets are in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, how they are faring and what we in England can learn from their experiences.

I welcome the annual reporting periods proposed in clause 2(3), and I hope that figures will be provided at a national, regional and constituency level, as they were previously. Although I appreciate that the reporting mechanisms in the Bill are intended to support the apprenticeship target, I feel that it would be valuable for them to continue beyond the end of this Parliament. After all, creating high-quality apprenticeships should be an aspiration for the long term and not just for the next five years.

I welcome the move to create more apprenticeships, as set out in the Bill. I will continue to meet businesses, training providers, schools and young people to understand their needs and ensure that they are represented. In the autumn, I will be looking to launch my own campaign to promote apprenticeships. I will be doing my bit to help us reach the 3 million target in this Parliament.