Carillion

Anne Main Excerpts

Monday 15th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

Yes.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

I am very pleased that the Minister has mentioned apprentices, but the nature of apprentices is that they are young and they are training as well as working. I am concerned that many young people cannot bear the burden of not receiving any money, despite the low remuneration they get as part of the training process, and that it will not be easy midway between training schemes to find another appropriate training scheme for those young people to dovetail into. May I ask that special consideration is given to that particularly unique set of circumstances of being partly trained and having to find somewhere else to go?

[Mr Lidington]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I can well understand why apprentices would be worried at the moment. Carillion has 11 training centres across England, with about 1,200 apprentices who are also Carillion employees and who are mostly 16 to 18-year-olds. The Construction Industry Training Board has now agreed to become the training provider for those apprentices, and it will assist apprentices accordingly in finding new employment as rapidly as possible.