National Apprenticeship Scheme

Chris Skidmore Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2010 Westminster Hall

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

I thank you, Mr Caton, for calling me to speak in this important debate, and my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) for securing it. I know that he feels passionately about the subject—so passionate that he has managed to secure two debates on it. I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this second occasion. I also thank the Minister for giving up his valuable time to reply to the debate.

I am sure that there is not one of us in this Chamber who does not believe that we should have more apprenticeships. The Minister has stated on the record that his ambition is to build a system that facilitates more apprenticeships in England than we have ever had. That is extremely welcome. I shall briefly explore what such a system might mean and how we can facilitate more apprenticeships. It will not be achieved by Government action alone or by taking a top-down approach; we must bring employers with us and encourage society as a whole to value apprenticeships.

I want to highlight the “100 apprenticeships in 100 days” campaign taking place in my local area in Kingswood, Bristol. The campaign, organised by the Bristol Evening Post, began on 17 June. At the first launch event, 100 apprenticeships were achieved within 100 minutes. That is a fantastic achievement, which I am sure the Minister will welcome. The editor of the Evening Post, Mike Norton, has already stated on the record that apprenticeships provide a

“highly flexible, highly effective work and training programme”

that we need more of.

It is clear that apprenticeships bring in new talent, ideas and passion to businesses. A Populus study shows that 81% of businesses stated that apprenticeships make their business more productive and 67% agreed that apprenticeships led to lower recruitment costs as a whole. We need to show businesses that it is in their interests to take on apprentices. It is not always a case of saying, “Let’s give an apprenticeship to an apprentice for their benefit.” The businesses, too, can benefit. Apprenticeships are a good step for young people and employers. I hope that society in general will move forward under this new Government and take on new apprenticeships.

[Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Caton—possibly for the first time—and to have heard the speeches of hon. Members who have contributed to the debate. I am pleased to hear apprentices and apprenticeships being valued so highly by hon. Members from all parties. Such comments are something of a damascene conversion on the part of the Conservative party because, as the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) said, reviving apprenticeships was a Labour idea.

It was a Labour idea because in 1997, after 18 years of Conservative Governments, the British apprenticeship was dead on its feet. The enthusiasm that we have heard from the Conservatives this morning was certainly not felt by the Conservative Governments between 1979 and 1997, who effectively sounded the death knell of apprenticeship schemes in the UK. Hon. Members should be aware of the tremendous record of the Labour Government in reviving the apprenticeship scheme within the UK. I am very proud indeed of the steps that were taken by the previous Government in re-establishing the importance and status of apprenticeships.

[Chris Skidmore]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Ian Lucas]

I want to make some progress at this stage, but I will give way in due course. I agree that we need to elevate the respect that people have for apprenticeships in industry and across the training field. However, the performance of further education colleges and other providers has improved dramatically over the past decade. The satisfaction rates of employers and learners have risen. Since 2001, about 3 million adults have improved their basic skills and achieved a national qualification and, since 1997, more than 2 million people have commenced apprenticeships, compared with the position under the previous Conservative Government. Even more importantly, completion rates for apprenticeships have more than doubled.

The focus of this morning’s debate is apprenticeships, but it is also important to mention the union learning fund, which is now worth £21.5 million a year. As a result of the fund, more than 23,000 union learning reps across the country are encouraging people to learn within their workplaces and develop their skills. That is what we all want to happen to improve the performance of UK industry. Those representatives helped nearly 250,000 workers into learning last year.

It would be remiss of me not to mention the highly successful transformation fund that supports adult learning. The fund has generated a marked increase in participation and there has been a huge investment of more than £2 billion into the Building Colleges for the Future programme, which has transformed the places in which people learn. In my constituency, through investment via the Welsh Assembly Government, Yale college has rebuilt its Bersham road site to enable it to help train apprentices equipped for 21st-century manufacturing. I hope that the Minister can reaffirm that all the schemes announced in the Building Colleges for the Future programme earlier this year will be going ahead. As manufacturing changes, it is important that colleges’ facilities improve to equip modern apprentices for modern engineering, modern industry and modern work.

The impact of the capital investment in our further education colleges under the Labour Government is part of our proud legacy on skills. Not a single penny was spent on further education capital for colleges in the final year of the Conservatives’ last term in office. Although the £50 million that the Minister has announced is very welcome, it is a one-off raid on revenue, not a long-term commitment.

Our White Paper, “Skills for Growth”, was published last November. It set out clearly the skills challenges for the next decade and gave a clear set of proposals to meet those challenges, including an ambition to ensure that three quarters of people participate in higher education or complete an advanced apprenticeship by the age of 30. The proposals include the expansion of the apprenticeship system to build a new technical class, by doubling apprenticeship places for young adults; apprenticeship scholarships; and focusing the skills budget on the areas from which future jobs will come.

[Chris Skidmore]

Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that there is a huge gulf between the image and the reality of what happened under the previous Government? For example, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), the former Prime Minister, promised 500,000 apprenticeships, but the number of apprenticeships fell by 13,200 in 2006-07. Furthermore, between 2007-08 and 2008-09 there was a decrease of 7.5% in the number of 16 to 18-year-olds taking on apprenticeships. The reality of the figures does not match up with what was in the White Paper.

[Ian Lucas]

What is absolutely clear is that, under the Labour Government, there were far more apprentices than in 1997 and the apprenticeship scheme has a value now that it did not have at that time. Later in my speech, I will talk about some individual examples of young people and not-so-young people who have benefited from the progress made under the Labour Government.

I should say to Conservative Members that I am simply not going to allow the previous Government’s record to be trashed in the way that the Conservative party is determined to trash it. The reality is that if it were not for the Labour Government, there would not be any apprentices at all in UK industry; the support that existed in 1997 was parlous in the extreme.

[Chris Skidmore]

Does the hon. Gentleman seriously believe that if it were not for the Labour Government, there would not be a single apprenticeship in this country? Is he willing to make that statement or would he like to retract it? The fact is that the number of young people not in education, employment or training has increased significantly—the figure is even higher than 1997 levels—to 837,000 in 2010, which is up from 618,000 in 2005. It is delusional to suggest that there would not be a single apprenticeship in this country and that apprenticeships would not exist if it were not for the Labour Government. In fact, youth unemployment skyrocketed under the Labour Government. He cannot deny that.

[Ian Lucas]

What I can say is that the Labour Government’s approach to apprenticeships from 1997 was a marked contrast to that of the preceding Government, and that it placed far more emphasis on the apprenticeships scheme. I will come on to talk about some specific examples from my area of which I am personally aware and mention the individuals I have met who have benefited hugely from the apprenticeships scheme.