Trades and Apprenticeships

Andrew Pakes Excerpts

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Pakes (Peterborough) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Amanda Martin) on securing this debate. It is a privilege to follow both her and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who have given us such a passionate case for the importance of apprenticeships to our economy, to young people and to those changing their careers. I will put on record that I am co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on apprenticeships. I also refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: I am on the skills advisory board for Google’s artificial intelligence campus, looking at new skills and new technologies.

Just last month, I welcomed the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to Peterborough college to visit apprentices and businesses and launch the Government’s “Get Britain Working” White Paper. I had the great privilege to meet excellent businesses and apprentices doing brilliant work, including EML, Baker Perkins, Taylor Rose, Codem and Gen Phoenix. Those businesses and learners are excelling in a system that has failed too many of our young people.

Today’s debate goes to the heart of my passion in this House to improve job opportunities for young people and career changers in Peterborough and around the country. I pay tribute to Peterborough college and to my new university campus, Anglia Ruskin University Peterborough, for the work they are doing in my city to transform life opportunities. In my constituency, apprenticeships are down and youth unemployment is up. Under the previous Government, the number of young people not in education, employment or training reached around 900,000, at a time of skills shortages and record net migration to the country. That includes a 40% slump in 16 to 19-year-olds taking an apprenticeship —unforgivable. This Government, I am pleased to say, recognise the severity of the situation. I pay tribute to the Minister for her sterling work to champion the cause of skills.

I will talk about two challenges around the perception and reality of apprenticeships. First, following my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North, I want to look at how the Government must mend the broken apprenticeship levy and increase opportunities. The levy has strayed from its original purpose of providing paid, skilled opportunities mainly for young people, and ensuring that employers target their levy spend to tackle skills gaps and shortages. I thank the Minister, alongside her colleagues in the Department, for their drive to make reform of the levy a reality.

All of us have a focus on certain elements of change, and I want to highlight a few areas that matter in my constituency. The first area is removing barriers related to English, maths and functional skills. We should allow flexibility on functional skills requirements, focusing on workplace-specific competencies rather than mandatory qualifications that block completion. I know from my conversations in Peterborough that that would be particularly important for construction, trades and other areas that we are talking about, where sometimes the competencies required are holding back young people who could flourish in those workspaces.

The second area is increasing the availability of level 2 programmes as a crucial entry point, aligned with local skills gaps and economic needs, particularly in sectors such as construction and healthcare, and for traders and small businesses. The third is providing fast-track options for those with technical certificates or prior experience, enabling them to complete apprenticeships faster. I would also like to see the expansion of degree apprenticeships, enabling more working-class young people to acquire skills in a paid job from day one.

At the end of the day, we cannot ignore the problems we face: poor skills, declining youth opportunities, stagnant wages and an over-reliance on workers from abroad. Some 11 million people of working age are currently inactive. That is a scandal, and it is the legacy of the last 14 years of Conservative Government. We all have a duty to turn it around by generating thousands more apprenticeships for young people, especially those under 25. That will be central, I believe, to the mission of this Government.

That brings me to my second challenge, which is a much broader one, about how we talk about apprenticeships. The topic of this debate, the perception of trades and apprenticeships, is central to that. We need to change the language, culture and approach to careers guidance and apprenticeships. I totted up the entries in a list I got from my office, and since I was elected, as part of my work on apprenticeships, I have met more than 100 businesses and learners from my constituency and more widely. Not one learner said to me that they started their apprenticeship because of help at school.

In our education system, we have a language for university but not one for apprenticeships. That cultural bias in our education system is holding young people and our country back. It needs to end. School are too often geared towards helping young people enter higher education. The language is about higher education: “What do you want to study?”, “Where are you planning to go?”, “Have you been to an open day?” We need a Government-wide and country-wide mission to change that—to make apprenticeships as important a choice as university for our young people. If we do not, we will fail.

As co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on apprenticeships, I am working across the House to help find workable solutions to those issues. I am lucky enough to meet great employers and apprentices in Peterborough and around the country—particularly those in construction, which my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North focused on so clearly. I have met with Laing O’Rourke on building sites in east London, with Travis Perkins to look at its work to support the trade, and with young people and construction workers in my own constituency. I know the will is there.

My dedication to apprenticeships is why I support the plans to get Britain working. It is why I welcome the youth guarantee, under which all young people will be offered the chance to earn and learn. It is why I will continue to campaign for an apprenticeship system that is fit for purpose—because apprenticeships are the lifeblood of decent work and growth in our economy, offering more young people a ladder of opportunity to the jobs of the future, and ensuring that our economy can sustain higher living standards through the right kind of skills training, which leads to economic growth.

We are committed to changing both the scope and perception of apprenticeships. Sir Martyn Oliver’s recent Ofsted report emphasised the transformative impact that apprenticeships can have, offering young people practical skills, experience and opportunities. Those milestones underscore an important truth: apprenticeships are not a fallback, they are a springboard to success.