Skills and Training Facilities

Andrew Bingham Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2014 Westminster Hall

[Stephen McPartland]

I agree with that valuable point. My hon. Friend stands up for Carlisle in his usual robust way. It is important for large towns and small cities to have those skills and training facilities; they should not just be attached to large employers.

In my constituency there are 4,000 research scientists employed at GlaxoSmithKline; there are 1,500 people employed at MBDA, which has a range of missiles in development; and another 1,500 are employed at Airbus Defence and Space, as it has just been rebranded, which builds 25% of the world’s telecommunications satellites. However, 90% of apprentices in the area are employed by small and medium-sized enterprises, and that happens only because they have access to training facilities and skills.

[Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)]

It is important to address this issue. A company in my constituency called Astral Training runs a training package that is attuned to the things that employers want, which will bring their employees’ skills on. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should focus on what employers and trainers want? The focus should be not on what we think is right, but on what employers think. They will employ the people, so we should make sure that they are trained to their needs.

[Stephen McPartland]

I completely agree. The juxtaposition between employers and education is important. Top-down centralised targets do not work, because places such as High Peak, Stevenage and Carlisle have different employment needs. There is a need for local skills and training facilities that can deliver to those areas.

People sometimes say that what we are talking about is not rocket science; well, in Stevenage it actually is—we have apprentice rocket scientists. Why have we been so lucky in Stevenage? The simple answer is that we have always had a great respect for apprentices in particular, and I have managed to persuade many SMEs that taking on an apprentice is a way of investing in their work force and future turnover. I will visit any company I can that takes on an apprentice, and meet them personally. Perhaps if I did not make those visits we would already have reached my target of 1,000 apprenticeship starts for this year—that is something for me to think about.

I have also worked with a local bank, which was close to agreeing to complete any apprenticeship-based paperwork for its SME business customers that took on a new apprentice. Unfortunately the individual that I was working with has moved on, so I need to revisit the matter and try to rebuild the approach. That would have released a whole range of new, smaller companies that are concerned about paperwork to move forward and employ an apprentice. The Minister has simplified the system, but fear of paperwork remains a barrier for many SMEs. I urge him to continue to reduce it as much as possible.