Enterprise Bill [HL]

Baroness Byford Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2015 Grand Committee

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

My Lords, we on these Benches broadly agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, said. There is no doubt that the push for numbers has meant quantity at the expense of quality. Only 6% of 16 to 18 year-olds go into an apprenticeship and about 80% of the apprenticeships that have been created have been taken up by people who are already in jobs. They have been doing a relatively low-level apprenticeship—what is known as the level 2 apprenticeship—which does no more than rubber stamp, giving them a qualification for the work that they have already been doing.

All that is detailed in the Ofsted report. I point out to the noble Lord, Lord Young, that Ofsted does inspect apprenticeship providers, and a report such as this, which is very damning indeed of the current system of apprenticeships, should wake the Government up to what has been proceeding. My noble friend Lord Stoneham and I have a subsequent amendment about higher-level apprenticeships. It is very sad that the number of apprenticeships at the moment undertaken at higher levels—even at level 3, which is the equivalent of A-level, let alone the proper technician, the old HND level, level 4, or level 5—is minimal. We are talking about 1% or 2% of apprenticeships. Those are the intermediate-level qualifications and skills that we desperately need in this country, but we are just not training people to that level at the moment.

To some extent, the whole business of creating 3 million apprenticeships is pulling the wool over people’s eyes as to precisely what we are doing about skills. I think that the Government are well aware of that and many of the reforms in hand at the moment are an attempt to raise the quality and answer the sorts of questions asked by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson.

In Clause 19, the Bill defines what is a statutory apprenticeship. That is an important beginning, but we need to keep a wary eye out as to precisely how all this is carried through: what a statutory apprenticeship means and the quality of provision.

[Baroness Byford (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise to the Committee that I could not be here at the start of the sitting. I shall speak in particular to my noble friend Lord Hodgson’s amendment, because other amendments in this group state “may”, while that of my noble friend states “must”. That may make it more difficult for the Minister, who will probably say that she does not like that wording, but I hope that she will take on board the thrust behind it.

Having listened to the discussion around the Committee this afternoon, we are clearly all concerned about having minimum standards. There is nothing worse than people going into training or apprenticeships and coming out feeling that it was not worth while, there is no job prospect at the end and they have totally wasted their time. That is very bad for the individual, but neither is it good for the employer or the college helping them.

I would like to add two things to what my noble friend said so ably. First, two years ago, the Lord Mayor of London at the time, Fiona Woolf, put a lot of force behind apprenticeships within City livery companies. As people around the Committee will know, the City livery companies were guilds in the olden days and set standards, and many still do today. Secondly, the Minister knows of my interest in agricultural colleges. I was visiting an agricultural college local to me recently, opening new facilities to enable young people to have a better start. I was talking to one or two of the apprentices. It is interesting that one or two who came in, particularly on the engineering side, had not really thought of going on to take further degrees or any further educational training, but had become so inspired by what they were learning at that college that one or two, although not all of them, reconsidered doing a further level of training, which I thought was hugely encouraging.

What I want to add my voice to is the point about the quality of the apprenticeships being offered—and assessing it is absolutely crucial—and the job prospects for those young people afterwards, whether it is going in for further training or whether there is a job at the end. Some I talked to were very clear that, after the training that they were getting, they were very hopeful that a job would follow because they had gained skills that a couple of days earlier they certainly had not got. From listening to the various contributions from around the Committee this afternoon, I am well aware that this is not a common factor among everybody; there are some good training schemes, but some are poor.

In my noble friend’s Amendment 50AA, he calls for,

“minimum standards for an apprenticeship agreement”,

which should be looked at after the first 12 months, and then the Secretary of State should consult those that the Secretary of State,

“considers appropriate on the details of such regulations, prior to publication”.

My noble friend’s amendment has given us a good steer, and I hope that the Minister will be able to give us something positive. Clearly, with my noble friend’s amendment, it is a question not of “may” but of “must”, providing a great direction to this Government on how we need to improve the quality while at the same time encouraging more people to take up apprenticeships as a further step to wherever they go in life. I support my noble friend’s amendment.

[Lord Snape]

My Lords, in listening to the debate so far, I think that one thing that unites all of us in the Committee is the desire to see proper apprenticeships in future years. Young people are understandably cynical about what they see as the exploitation that has often taken place in many of the so-called apprenticeship schemes that were introduced. As the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, said, they are not proper apprenticeships as we would understand them. I do not blame the present Government for that situation, or even their predecessor; these things have been going on for many years. I recollect more than 40 years ago, as a very junior member of Harold Wilson’s Government, which dates me somewhat, learning with some degree of concern about what was happening with the youth training schemes. They were introduced in all good faith by a Labour Government but abused by employers, who took on youngsters and promised them jobs in future that never materialised or for which they were not properly trained. In one case that stuck in my mind, they were offered a permanent job, but only at YTS rate, which was, of course, less than the traditional rate for the job. So there is a widespread concern and cynicism among young people about these schemes.

A few weeks ago, we had a debate about apprenticeships on the Floor of the House, and I drew your Lordships’ attention to one or two of the abuses taking place at that time. I do not wish to repeat them chapter and verse, but it is instructive that one scheme in particular—an apprenticeship advertised by Subway, the sandwich maker—reverberated through the technical press around the world. The job had been advertised as an apprenticeship; the description was “a sandwich architect”. I asked whether somebody taking that particular qualification would move from white to brown bread or cut the crusts off or move to gluten-free bread before six months was up. But one thing that that job certainly did not do was qualify any young person in any meaningful way towards a better future.

There was another so-called apprenticeship advertised by a firm of estate agents; the young person concerned was supposed to go around and look at various properties, to check advertisements in the trade press to see where the properties were advertised for sale and see whether it was possible to lure the owners of those properties from the books of one company to another. To do that job one would inevitably need a car. There was no mention. Indeed, the young person who came to talk to me about this said he followed this up and there was no fuel allowance or any other allowance for the time involved in the role. He was supposed to drive around, presumably at his own expense. He was 21 years old and possessed a car, but, as he said, at £2.37 an hour—which was the advertised apprenticeship rate—he did not see that it was possible for him to do it and how it would qualify him for the future.

I hope the Minister can give the Committee some reassurance about the future. I welcome the Government’s intention—I am not quite sure how they will implement it—to outlaw some of the practices. The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, referred to people looking for grants in the way that they do. Human nature being what it is, that is how certain people react. It does not give young people any great hope for the future. Indeed, I have used this word twice before, but I shall use it again: it gives them a great degree of cynicism about the way their talents are exploited.

As my noble friend Lady Corston said, for those of a certain generation, apprenticeships usually, if not inevitably, meant in engineering, heavy industry and that sort of area. It was accepted that although you might be paid a little bit less than some of your contemporaries, after a five or six-year apprenticeship you were well qualified and could see a way forward in the world of work for the rest of your life. It is not possible to say that under schemes like the one I have just mentioned. I will be interested to hear from the Minister what plans she has to stop that sort of exploitation of young people and to give them some genuine hope that the work they do as apprentices will properly qualify them for the world of work in future.