Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Geoffrey Robinson and Nick Boles

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

There is a convention, which we have stuck to for very good reasons, that we do not ask the taxpayer to pay for licences to practise a particular profession. We believe that doing so should be directly in the interests of both the employer and the employee who will benefit from having the licence. However, we are encouraging those companies to develop, and they are working on developing, an apprenticeship standard to include the whole of the rest of the training, which will of course receive substantial support from the taxpayer and from the apprenticeship levy.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

13. When he plans to bring forward proposals to improve access to finance for (a) the smallest businesses and (b) people who are self-employed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Geoffrey Robinson and Nick Boles

Thursday 8th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

It is incredibly important that apprenticeships are created not just by the largest employers who obviously have the resources and capacity to engage with the scheme. That is why we introduced the apprenticeship grant for employers, which is specifically focused on small businesses and pays them £1,500 for the first new apprenticeships that they create. We are also looking at ways of making it easier for small businesses to get the Government’s money and to decide with whom they want to work as a training provider. But it is critical—only about 10% of employers are creating apprenticeships; if we could just double that, we could more than double the number of apprenticeships.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

Should we not give the Minister the opportunity to withdraw his unfortunate remarks about Mickey Mouse apprenticeships, which really are very disrespectful to all those who worked hard and did a good job in important apprenticeships in the years to which he was referring? Is it not true that most of the increase under this Government, which Members from all parts of the House welcome, has taken place not among 16 to 18-year-olds but in the 20-year-olds-plus group, and we now need apprenticeships that will encourage the younger group into them?

[Nick Boles]

It gives me great pleasure to disagree with literally everything that the hon. Gentleman has said. I certainly will not withdraw my suggestion that the last Government was conning young people. An apprenticeship that lasted less than 12 months and did not even have an employer was a fraud on them, because it was not preparing them for a life of work or giving them relevant skills. It is a bit strange for the Opposition to suggest that nobody over the age of 24 deserves any investment in new skills or any chance to acquire a new ability. I welcome the fact that people over the age of 24 are taking up apprenticeships more than ever before.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Geoffrey Robinson and Nick Boles

Monday 21st July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

I do not want to be pernickety, but the hon. Gentleman’s question reads as follows:

“What assessment she has made of the effect on admissions numbers for sixth-form colleges of funding changes”.

The answer is that the funding changes have produced an increase in admission numbers to sixth-form colleges.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

May I ask the Minister to turn his mind from the general to the specific—namely, City College Coventry, which trains about 50% of 16 to 18-year-olds in Coventry and which, for the year 2015, is receiving an 18% cut? Will he look at that specifically and perhaps come with me to visit the college?

[Nick Boles]

I would be happy to look at the particular financial situation of the college in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency and to see how the damping mechanism that is in place is working in that case.