Apprenticeships

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Chuka Umunna

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

rose—

[Mr Umunna]

I will give way to—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Umunna]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his one intervention. I will come on to deal with pay and the 2 million figure he gives, but first I will give way to my hon. Friend.

[Andrew Gwynne]

May I thank my hon. Friend for the support that he and the Labour Front-Bench team gave to my private Member’s Bill in the previous Session? The Government talked it out, and does he not think that that was a wasted opportunity, because for every £1 million of capital investment in public procurement, we could have secured an additional apprenticeship?

[Mr Umunna]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about that. I congratulated him at the time on his Bill, and we should continue to remind this House of the efforts that were made then and the wasted opportunity to which he refers. The reason he introduced that Bill was clearly because he read the OECD’s review of vocational education and training, which found that few countries achieve strong engagement in vocational education and training without a strong apprenticeship system. Now, that will not automatically happen on its own. Government must play an active role, not in a top-down, command-control fashion, but by using their convening power in an enterprising, entrepreneurial way, working in partnership with business to address the problem and to increase productivity. Before I explain how we aim to achieve that and consider what the Government have done during this Parliament, when I will touch on that 2 million figure, I want to say something about our record, because I am sure it will be referred to.

I accept that when Labour left office there was an outstanding need to increase the number and improve the quality of apprenticeships in our country, but before Government Members get too excited, I should say that it would be wrong to claim we did not make any progress. In government, we more than quadrupled the number of apprenticeship starts from a woeful 65,000 under the previous Major Government in 1996-1997 to 280,000 starts in our final year in office. Apprenticeships were simply not on the radar when we entered office; they were very much on the radar when we left office. We used the weight of government to begin the culture change we need. So from the 2012 Olympics to Building Schools for the Future projects up and down the country, we linked the creation of apprenticeships to public procurement across a number of Departments. We set up a dedicated National Apprenticeship Service to support and expand apprenticeships. I speak to many young people who tell me that they were signposted to the apprenticeship they are now doing by visiting the service’s website. Of course, it was also Labour in government that established national apprenticeship week in 2008, and the week is now an annual event in the national calendar. I am proud of our record. I am proud that this Labour party rescued apprenticeships from the scrapheap.



The current Government have sought to build on the foundations we put in place. They say that since we left office they have overseen the creation of 2 million new apprenticeship starts, and the hon. Member for Gloucester referred to those. I do not think there is any point boasting about numbers if the apprenticeships are not of sufficient quality. I will come to that in a moment, but first let us look at their claimed numbers. How many of the 2 million apprenticeships are really new apprenticeships and how many have emerged as a result of rebadging—in other words, re-labelling existing work a person is already doing in the workplace as an apprenticeship? A very large proportion of additional apprenticeship places created by this Government have come in the post-25 age brackets. The largest percentage rise in apprenticeships under this Government has actually been among the over-60s, where the increase has been 520%. According to the 2014 apprenticeship pay survey, 93% of adult apprentices already worked for their existing employer before starting their apprenticeship. That would suggest that many existing training schemes, such as those delivered under the old Train to Gain programme, have simply been rebadged and re-labelled as apprenticeships.

That is the situation on apprenticeships for adults. The shortage is perhaps most acute among young people, so what is happening to apprenticeship starts there? The number of 19 to 24-year-olds starting an apprenticeship has fallen by more than 6,000 in the past year. In fact, the number of 19 to 24 apprenticeship starts is currently falling in every single region outside London. Overall, the share of apprentices who are under 25 has fallen from 84% in 2009-10 to 64%, and the share of apprentices who are under 19 has fallen from 43% in the last year of the Labour Government to 28% under this one. So the simple fact is this: for all the boasts, there has been some jiggery-pokery with the numbers. The bottom line is that we need many more apprenticeships and we need to raise employer demand for them. Half our large employers do not offer any apprenticeships at all in Britain today—that is totally unacceptable. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne), the shadow skills Minister, has said previously, when it is harder to get an apprenticeship with Jaguar Land Rover than it is to get into an Oxford college, it is pretty obvious that more needs to be done.

The numbers are one thing, but I said that I would say something about quality. In most other northern European countries apprenticeships are level 3 qualifications lasting between two and five years, and they include at least one day a week of off-the-job learning, as well as significant on-the-job training. In England, most of the growth of apprenticeships in recent years has been at a level that would simply not be recognised in those countries. Just 35% of our apprenticeships are at level 3 or above, and just 2% are at level 4. In fact, according to the Department’s own figures, published in its apprenticeship pay survey, one in five apprentices does not even receive any formal training at the moment. The figure increases to almost a quarter of those in the 19 to 24 age bracket, who are not being properly trained. If we truly want to ensure more parity of esteem between the academic and the non-academic—between the way people view university degrees and the way they view these types of vocational and technical qualifications—how can we hope to do that when they are not of sufficiently good quality? We have got to raise standards. Even where apprentices are receiving training, far too many of them are still not receiving the appropriate minimum wage—15% are paid below the appropriate national minimum wage, with the figure rising to 20% for 19 to 20-year-olds.

I will come on to address how we intend to encourage more private sector employers to provide more and better quality apprenticeships appropriate to their needs, but surely government, as one of the biggest employers in the country, should be setting an example, both in recruiting as many apprentices as possible and in providing good-quality apprenticeships. The civil service apprenticeship scheme hired just 200 apprentices in 2014. That is 200 out of more than 400,000 civil servants, which is just not good enough. Never mind the Departments themselves, Government should be doing more in this area. They should use their clout as a procurer of goods and services to get more employers in the private sector to provide apprenticeships.

Our Labour colleagues in local government have already been leading the way in utilising procurement to boost apprenticeship numbers. Newham, Knowsley, Sheffield and Manchester have all developed strategies to use procurement contracts to create apprenticeship opportunities for young people locally. Central Government should do the same, as those opportunities are simply not happening to the degree and on the scale required.

National Minimum Wage

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Chuka Umunna

Wednesday 15th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Umunna]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend, and in my constituency I have seen the stress, upset and angst caused by the bedroom tax, causing people to have to leave an area in which many of them have grown up and love so much. My hon. Friend is right: the bedroom tax shows the instincts of our different parties.

Although we are, of course, proud to have established the national minimum wage, which helped to end exploitation and extreme low pay, it did not end low pay per se. Under this Government working people have experienced their wages dropping by an average of more than £1,600 a year. The 1 October rise in the minimum wage is the first real-terms increase during this Parliament, and it is still 4.1% below its 2008 peak and just 2p above its equivalent value in 2005. Therefore, if we are elected next year, our goal will be to halve the number of people on low pay in our country. To achieve that, we need the minimum wage to evolve to address the broader problem of low pay, which is the purpose of the motion.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

We need that proposal, but we also need effective enforcement of the national minimum wage. Is my hon. Friend appalled, as I am, to learn that as many as 300,000 people in this country are still being paid below the national minimum wage and yet, in the past four years, there have been only two prosecutions?

[Mr Umunna]

I am appalled by that. My hon. Friend is right to mention enforcement. I will come to that, but I pay tribute to his work—I have been to his constituency—on ensuring that those who work hard get a decent day’s pay, in addition to his work on training and apprenticeships, which he has talked about a lot.

Jobs and Work

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Chuka Umunna

Wednesday 11th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Umunna]

No, it is not, and I should say that the Deputy Prime Minister’s intervention on this subject while standing in for the Prime Minister at PMQs was deeply embarrassing, given that he was attacking an independent report that was produced by a group of experts for us which said exactly the same as his own Secretary of State’s report for his Department on the same subject.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the best ways of increasing the numbers of advanced and higher-level apprenticeships would have been to implement my Apprenticeships and Skills (Public Procurement Contracts) Bill? It would have meant that the billions of pounds of investment that we spend as taxpayers in public procurement could lever in extra apprenticeships at the higher and advanced level.

[Mr Umunna]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing attention to his excellent Bill, which I and many of my hon. Friends were here to support, but which was disappointingly ignored by the Government.

What is happening to apprenticeships now? This issue, frequently raised here by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South (Mr Marsden) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne), is worrying.

Job Insecurity

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Chuka Umunna

Wednesday 5th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Umunna]

That is right. Zero-hours contracts are perhaps most symptomatic of the increasing insecurity we are seeing in today’s workplace.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

Other Members have mentioned the need for proper, decent employment rights in the workplace. Does my hon. Friend regret the fact that this Government seem to see protections in the workplace as burdensome regulation?

[Mr Umunna]

My hon. Friend is totally correct to raise that issue. Not only is it an issue of justice in the workplace, but it is also—[Interruption.] I have completely forgotten the point I was going to make—one of those moments. Ah, the thought has returned to me: it is also bad for the economy. If people are frightened out of their wits about whether they will retain their jobs, they will hardly go and spend money in our economy.

Zero-hours Contracts

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Chuka Umunna

Wednesday 16th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Umunna]

I don’t think so, because Ministers keep quoting statistics from the ONS to me, despite its having conceded that there is a real risk that they do not reflect reality.

Have the Government devoted the same energy and time to protecting people from the exploitative use of these contracts as they have to implementing the recommendations of the Prime Minister’s employment law adviser, Adrian Beecroft, for watering down people’s rights at work? No, they have not.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to talk about the insecurity that zero-hours contracts can create, which happens in three ways: by insisting on availability even when there is no work; by requiring workers to work exclusively for one business; and by using zero-hours contracts to erode and water down the basic rights in the workplace of employees who work regular hours. Is that not what we need to clamp down on?

[Mr Umunna]

Absolutely, and I will come to how we intend to do that shortly, but I give way to the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), who has been waiting patiently.

Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Chuka Umunna

Tuesday 16th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Umunna]

I agree that it is absolutely outrageous. Furthermore, on the issue of simplifying regulation, let me say this to Government Members: the promotion and protection of equality and human rights is not, and should not be seen as, regulation. The unrelenting pursuit of these things helps to make this the fair and decent country that Britain is to live in. It is something that we should celebrate.

What is the Government’s defence? What is their justification for pressing ahead with including clause 52 in the Bill? In Committee, the Minister’s predecessor—she did the same today—sought to rely heavily on the comments of the commission’s general counsel in the public evidence session. I have read that evidence in full, and it is true that at the end of it he said:

“The commission is not opposed to the Bill.”––[Official Report, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Public Bill Committee, 19 June 2012; c. 80, Q180.]

As the general counsel made clear, however, it is not for him or the commission to take a position on the Bill. It is a political matter for the Government. That said, he made some interesting comments to which, I note, the Minister did not refer. He was clear that resources were being cut. He said that

“if the commission is given fewer resources, we will have fewer staff and less money to do the work that we would want to do.”––[Official Report, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Public Bill Committee, 19 June 2012; c. 74, Q162.]—[Interruption.]

From a sedentary position, the Under-Secretary of State for Skills, the hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock), says, “Who racked up the debt?” I do not think that we can put a price on human rights and equality in this country.

On the commission’s remit, the general counsel was unequivocal. He said:

“This Bill reduces our powers and our remit… We would prefer to keep the remit we have, so we have not promoted the amendments in the Bill.”

Finally, on the repeal of the general duty in section 3 of the Equality Act 2006, he said that the section

“sets out a vision for a kind of society that I guess most people here would want to live in”––[Official Report, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Public Bill Committee, 19 June 2012; c. 79, Q176-79.]

and confirmed that the repeal of the duty “lowers the vision”.

Before moving on, it would be remiss of me not to turn to the Minister’s comments about the commission’s recent problems. Yes, the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Public Accounts Committee have been very critical of the commission, and, yes, the National Audit Office has qualified its accounts, but none of these inquiries concluded that its remit should be changed in the way the Government are doing in the Bill. The most recent accounts were unqualified, and the running of the organisation has not been helped by the Government preventing it from recruiting a permanent chief executive and senior management team for more than two years. These recent problems are hopefully in the past and certainly do not justify the winding down of the commission.

The Minister, and the Secretary of State in his letter to me earlier this month, said that it was not the Government’s intention to water down, wind down or abolish the commission. Nevertheless, we know that many Government Members would like to see the back of it.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

Of course, one of the benefits of the commission is its independence from Government and Ministers. Does my hon. Friend share my concern that altering the commission’s remit will fundamentally undermine the independence of what is left of this organisation?

[Mr Umunna]

Absolutely, and I would say two things about what my hon. Friend has just said. First, when it comes to the comments of the general counsel, one has to consider that he is passing comment on his masters who are cutting his budget massively. To suggest that that does not weigh on his mind when he makes comments about the Bill is probably quite naive. The second thing I would say is that the independence of the organisation is paramount, and its ability to do its job will be compromised by the changes being made.

Let me point out to the Minister that what people are entitled to do when making a judgment about her party and her Government’s intentions for the commission is to look at the actions they have taken. The catalogue of things that I have just listed has meant not only that people in her own party are incredibly worried about its future, but that many of the stakeholders who work in this area are also worried about it. At the moment, the general view among many people is that we are effectively seeing the abolition of this important organisation by stealth. That is what seems to be happening.

Sunday Trading (London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and Chuka Umunna

Monday 30th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Umunna]

I am happy to be able to give the assurance that we certainly would not support any permanent change to the current regime.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

Did my hon. Friend notice that when the Secretary of State was explaining why he considered the Olympic and Paralympic games to be a special case, he referred to the football World cup in Germany, which is a completely different event? Does my hon. Friend share my concern that this Bill will set a precedent for future sporting and cultural events in this country, and open the door to far wider changes to the Sunday trading laws?

[Mr Umunna]

That is a very valid concern.