Oral Answers to Questions

Jack Lopresti Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[George Freeman]

I assure the hon. Gentleman that my right hon. Friends the Chancellor and the Business Secretary, and this ministerial team, take the need to reduce small business regulation very seriously. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary is giving a speech to the Federation of Small Businesses today on precisely that subject.

The Government’s track record in this regard is incredibly strong. We have increased small business rate relief, we have taken £10 billion-worth of red tape from small businesses through the Enterprise Bill, and we are raising the rates of finance for small businesses. That is why we had a record 5.4 million new businesses in 2015, which means that 25% more businesses have been created since we came to power.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

13. What steps he is taking to raise the status of apprenticeships among employers. [R]

[The Minister for Skills (Nick Boles)]

We are giving employers the opportunity to design high-quality apprenticeships that meet their needs, and more than 1,300 employers are already involved. We are also establishing the employer-led Institute for Apprenticeships to improve standards and safeguard quality.

[Jack Lopresti]

Businesses have, on the whole, welcomed the apprenticeship levy, but many are worried about how it will be implemented. Is my hon. Friend considering any sort of pilot scheme, involving a small number of businesses of all sizes, to ensure that when it is rolled out, it is rolled out smoothly and efficiently?

[Nick Boles]

I thank my hon. Friend for organising one of the best attended and most interesting meetings of the all-party parliamentary group on this subject. I am doing many meetings of that kind both privately and, like that one, publicly to discuss the implementation of the levy. We will be publishing later in the spring the details of how the levy will work. There are all sorts of thorny questions, but we are talking to business about all of them.