Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Thursday 26th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

I pay tribute to the work that BAE Systems does with its apprenticeships. It not only has hundreds of apprentices, many of whom I have met, but offers more and more higher apprenticeships, which provide the very best available training on the job. We have to make sure that smaller businesses get the message that apprenticeships can help them too; in fact, the majority of apprentices are in smaller businesses. We have made the apprenticeship grant for employers focused on smaller businesses to help them with the extra costs they have in taking on apprentices.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

15. When are the Government going to put an emphasis on quality apprenticeships? Why do we need 47 different streams of funding for skills generally? When are we going to sort out on-the-job training from actual apprenticeships? Are the Government lumping on-the-job training into the figures for apprenticeships, when apprenticeships are totally different?

[Matthew Hancock]

No, the figures for apprenticeships show the number of apprenticeships. They also show that we are on track to achieve 2 million apprenticeships in this Parliament—in fact, figures published at 9.30 this morning show that there have been 1.8 million apprenticeships since the election. We are simplifying the funding structures and putting more money through employers, so that they can buy the apprenticeship training they need.