Apprenticeships (Small Businesses)

Justin Tomlinson Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2011 Westminster Hall

[Richard Graham]

Yes. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that FE colleges have a critical role to play, as do some of the smaller, specialist training providers. A question for us all to consider—I am sure that my hon. Friend has done this in his own constituency—is the extent to which courses offered by further education colleges can be effectively tailored to the requirements of small businesses. Quite often, some of the courses—this is where the questions of the framework structure and the sector skills bodies come in—are fairly specific and technical, and small businesses often require an apprentice to take elements of a business administration course, elements of a marketing course and elements of other courses. So there is a question about whether there is an adequate structure of training to cater for small businesses, but I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that further education colleges have a crucial role to play.

Moving away from apprenticeships in general and their take-up nationally, and coming on to the small businesses sector specifically, I believe that there are just less than 5 million small businesses in the UK, of which more than 3.5 million have sole proprietors. An astonishing statistic is that 97% of UK companies employ fewer than 20 people, and 95% of them employ fewer than five people. That shows us that one of the key drivers in all our constituency economies is the extent to which small companies that employ fewer than five people feel able to take on an additional person.

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

As a former small business owner myself, I recognise the challenges. For nine years, I wanted to get an apprentice, but I did not understand how to do so. The Government can play a proactive role in providing information to explain just how easy it is to recruit an apprentice. My suggestion, which I have raised on a number of occasions, is doing it through the annual business rates bill. All the information can be provided at a relatively low cost.

[Richard Graham]

That is an interesting suggestion, and one that I am sure the Minister will want to respond to in due course. The idea of using the annual business rates bill as an opportunity to explain how simple it is to take on apprenticeships would, I think, be widely appreciated. My hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) is right, and I was just about to come on to the question of education and information. There is undoubtedly a gap that needs to be filled.

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[Gordon Birtwistle (Burnley) (LD)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) on securing this important debate for Westminster Hall today. He has covered most of what I was going to say, but I would like to make a few comments about my experience in the manufacturing industry and with apprenticeships.

When I was 15 years old, with no O-levels and without even passing the 11-plus, I left secondary school to become an apprentice craft engineer. I studied at night school for three nights a week until I was 25, and finished up with two higher national certificates. Those are the type of jobs that we need now. We have stacks of young people leaving university with higher qualifications but in engineering we do not have the people coming through to make the products that the academics and the people from university design.

[Justin Tomlinson]

I commend my hon. Friend for making that point, because the statistics show that those from apprenticeship schemes have a much better chance of securing full-time permanent employment than graduates.

[Gordon Birtwistle]

My hon. Friend is correct. Anyone who has a skill in running, programming and setting computer-controlled machinery will never be out of work. In fact, in Lancashire, there is a big demand for such people, and some companies are paying golden hellos to steal operators from other companies.

In Burnley, on 20 June we are having a manufacturing summit at the brand new £100 million college, which is linked to a university that is also involved in advanced manufacturing—that is a small advert for what we hope to do. I am pleased to say that the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills will be there, as will the managing director of Boeing UK, the chairman of AgustaWestland and many other big manufacturers, along with smaller manufacturers from north-east Lancashire. The event is about getting big and small manufacturers to come along to listen to the Secretary of State, but we have also asked local schools to give presentations and to bring students to listen to people in the industry, with a view to taking up apprenticeships.

At Business, Innovation and Skills questions this morning I asked about careers. It is vital that we instil in young people long before they reach 15 or 16 what the prospects in the work force are. Careers officers talking to young people at 12, 13 or 14 is important, because once they get to 15 and 16 it is too late for them to change their mind about becoming a doctor, vet, solicitor or barrister. They cannot have some careers because they do not have the qualifications, and cannot move into the subjects that might interest them in becoming apprentice engineers or entering manufacturing.

Burnley is one of the best places in the country for job vacancies. I spoke to the regional director of Jobcentre Plus, who told me that Burnley is one of the country’s brighter lights because vacancies have gone up by more than 30% since this time last year. That is a great result, but the vast majority of vacancies are for skilled manual workers, and the big problem is that we do not have a pool of out-of-work skilled manual workers. My son, who owns an engineering company, tells me that if a skilled worker is out of work now, he is no good and he will not be taken on. That is the situation, so we need people to replace those who are retiring. It is critical that apprentices come through to do the craft jobs, and work on machines for the products that go into advanced manufactured items such as jet engines and components for the nuclear and oil industries, where we are world leaders and sell across the world.