Apprenticeships

Jamie Reed Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

We should see apprenticeships as one of the hallmarks of a good society. It is all well and good—probably in a stereotypical fashion—to consider apprenticeships to be the domain of blue-collar families. It is true that decades ago securing a good apprenticeship with good employment prospects was the pinnacle of achievement for many working-class families. De-industrialisation changed the dynamic, as did the rise in the number of students from working-class families attending university, but the situation is changing again. Where we used to describe young people from working-class families and communities as “blue collar”, admittedly using an American political affectation, we should now see them not as blue collar workers but as blue scholar workers from blue scholar families. They understand the need to learn constantly, to innovate and to change in order to keep themselves, their families, their communities, and our country and its economy among the world’s leaders. If we do not seek to provide opportunities for these young people, their communities and their families—families like my own—we will fail them, our economy and the nation.

When we talk about rebalancing our economy, we must acknowledge the national need for successful apprenticeships. We do not simply need a series of apprenticeship schemes; we need an apprenticeship culture, which should be embedded among our public and private sectors, and we should be able to interchange between the two. Looking to the future, we have to recognise that planning for economic growth and planning for economic success is not the same as having a planned economy. The energy sector will command billions of pounds of public money over a very long period, and it is only right that private companies in that sector and others like it, which are in receipt of public investment, should reciprocate with effective apprenticeship programmes.

In terms of effective corporate social responsibility, there are few better ways of leaving a lasting legacy, contributing towards the betterment of society and securing a loyal, committed and productive work force than by investing in continuous personal development. Apprenticeships are potentially the best way in which any company in any sector can do that. If the Government are as committed in practice as they claim to be in their rhetoric, surely they will demand that those undertaking large public contracts should have apprenticeship places for younger people written into those contracts. I urge this Government to do that, as I would the next Labour Government.

This issue is of particular importance to my constituency, which is home to the Sellafield nuclear facility, where £1.6 billion of public money is spent each year. The site is publicly owned by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and is operated privately by Nuclear Management Partners, the parent company of Sellafield Ltd. Sellafield Ltd takes on an average of 70 apprentices a year, one of the highest intakes in the country, and 18% of its engineering apprentices are young women compared with a national average of about 3%. Although that is nowhere near enough, credit should be given where it is due and I want to commend Sellafield Ltd on that achievement.

I mentioned Nuclear Management Partners, which holds one of the most important and lucrative public sector contracts in the UK and is currently in the throes of a contract renegotiation with the NDA. The Chair of the Public Accounts Committee has made a withering assessment of the fees earned from the public purse by NMP, which were £54 million in the last year alone. She points out:

“Public money to the tune of £1.6 billion is being spent at Sellafield each year. This is an area of considerable deprivation with high unemployment. We are looking for there to be clearer ambition that spending on this huge scale contributes to creating jobs and supports sustainable growth in the region and the UK.”

That is an accurate and succinct analysis of what needs to be done. Apprenticeships, job creation and significant capital investments are all part of the contribution identified by the Public Accounts Committee as being necessary from NMP. On the day the Government admit that they do not have the money they need to build the schools they have promised, it requires only a fairly simple exercise in joining the dots for NMP to understand one of the principal areas where its new contribution must be made.

I hope that Ministers, with and through the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and as part of the ongoing contractual negotiation, will help to deliver a better, more constructive and equitable settlement for my community, for this country and for the taxpayer.