Trades and Apprenticeships

Clive Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 17th December 2024 Westminster Hall

[Clive Jones (Wokingham) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Betts. I thank the hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Amanda Martin) for securing this important debate.

We do not have a construction college in Wokingham borough, and residents hoping to undertake a trade apprenticeship will find that the closest colleges are in Bracknell, Reading or even Basingstoke. Anyone who wishes to undertake a civil engineering course will need to travel as far away as Fareham, an hour and 18 minutes away by car. The lack of local training centres has proved to be a challenge for construction companies in the area. Often, young apprentices do not have cars, and so cannot drive long distances, or lack the financial means to travel very far out of the borough. Given that the existing public transport is not very good, the problem is set to get bigger with the Government’s removal of the £2 bus fare cap. More must be done to support young apprentices.

It is unfortunate that there is a currently significant skills gap in the construction sector in my constituency of Wokingham, and across Berkshire. I thank Paul Britton of the Thames Valley Chamber of Commerce for its work on Berkshire’s local skills improvement plan. It has calculated a 19% decline, locally, in the number of carpenters’ and joiners’ jobs, an 8% drop in electricians’ and electrical fitters’ jobs, a 9% decrease in construction operatives’ jobs, and a 7% fall in elementary construction occupations. Despite that overall decline, we have an estimated need for an extra 4,300 jobs, and 14,900 replacement workers in those sorts of jobs will be needed by 2035. What will the Minister do to cover the shortages that we know are in the pipeline?

Just about everybody will say that they have difficulty finding a carpenter, a plumber or an electrician. Employers state that greater knowledge of the sector is needed in schools to show the opportunities and career progression that is available. Employers also note that the skills gap is not just limited to traditional trades, but to digital and sustainable skills in the construction sector. Can the Minister explain the Government’s plans for building awareness of apprenticeships in schools?

The Liberal Democrats would create a new lifelong skills grant for every adult, giving them £5,000 to spend on approved education and training courses to gain skills for the jobs of the future. Our existing system is not set up for a world of work in which the skills we learn at 18 or 21 will not last a lifetime. How will the Minister’s plans for Skills England and reforming the apprenticeship levy yield better opportunities for apprentices in Wokingham, especially in the construction sector? Will the Minister commit to meet me and the companies that offer apprenticeships to discuss what they need from the Government to deliver better opportunities for apprenticeships in Wokingham?

Turning to the issue of recruitment and completion rates, there is a perception of trade apprenticeships as muddy boots and jobs for young boys. Through the work of Wokingham’s section 106 employment and skills plan, we hope to change that perception. Locally, 30 community skills events have been held to help break down the stereotype, including work experience, careers talks in schools and site visits. However, there are foundational issues with the existing structures that the Government need to address before firms can consider establishing apprenticeships.

Specifically, Wates Construction is currently managing the Gorse Ride redevelopment project in my constituency. It has highlighted a problem that similar and smaller subcontractors experience. They sometimes do not have the capacity to take on apprentices due to the value of the contract and the duration, where they may not be on site for long enough. Although shared apprenticeship schemes are great, they have to pay agency fees on top of apprenticeship wages, which makes it an unaffordable option. Can the Minister address the issues raised by Wates Construction about the affordability of apprentices? What more can be done to ensure businesses like theirs can take on more apprenticeships?