Apprenticeships

David Nuttall Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

I am happy to place it on record that it was, mainly, Lord Mandelson who reintroduced the idea of modern apprenticeships, but I will not shy away from pointing out that some of Labour’s policy measures led to programme-led apprenticeships in which the apprentice did not need to have an employer and which lasted only a few months. That rather undermined the quality and the brand of the programme, but we have got rid of those apprenticeships. We have now introduced some simple minimum standards. An apprenticeship must be a job: the apprentice must have an employer. It must last for at least 12 months, and it must have at least 20% off-the-job training content. That is why in some categories we had a short-term dip in the number of apprenticeship starts at the beginning of the last Parliament: we were getting rid of some of the slightly Mickey Mouse apprenticeships that had been on offer.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

When will the Institute for Apprenticeships be up and running, and will it have a role in resolving any problems that might arise with apprenticeships?

[Nick Boles]

The Institute for Apprenticeships will come into being in a kind of shadow form this spring, after which it will have 12 months to start taking over its responsibilities before formally taking over in April 2017. Specific complaints about training provision, which sometimes occur, will continue to be dealt with in part by Ofsted through its inspections and in part by the Skills Funding Agency, which will manage the relationship with training providers. However, broader complaints about employers or particular apprenticeship standards will indeed be the responsibility of the Institute for Apprenticeships.