Oral Answers to Questions

Eleanor Smith Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

1. What assessment he has made of trends in the level of apprenticeship starts since the introduction of the apprenticeship levy.

[Eleanor Smith (Wolverhampton South West) (Lab)]

2. What assessment he has made of trends in the level of apprenticeship starts since the introduction of the apprenticeship levy.

[Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)]

21. What assessment he has made of trends in the level of apprenticeship starts since the introduction of the apprenticeship levy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds]

The hon. Gentleman’s constituency has leading apprenticeship employers, including Centrica, Mars and Telefónica-O2, and they play a leading role in showing what it is possible to do with apprenticeships. The IFA has brought forward a programme called “Faster and Better” to make sure that standards are approved more quickly, and we have seen the number of apprenticeship starts on standards rising sharply. We continue to monitor that.

[Eleanor Smith]

Last year, the Government set a target of 2.3% of the workforce for public bodies on employing apprentices, yet following a series of parliamentary questions by the shadow Education team we have discovered that the vast majority of Departments, including the Department for Education, are failing to hit that target. If the Department is unable to meet such targets internally, how are we supposed to believe that it is going to meet the 3 million target by 2020?

[Damian Hinds]

The hon. Lady is right to identify the important role that the public sector plays and to say that we have to try additionally hard. She mentioned my Department, and we have opportunities for training assistants and graduates through the teaching apprenticeship.