Oral Answers to Questions

Laurence Robertson Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

I am a great fan of the German Sparkasse system, and it is a pity that we never had it in Britain. If the hon. Gentleman looks back on the record of the previous Labour Government, he will recall that in 2000, they had a report prepared for them on the inadequacies of British business lending and the enormous problems created by the fact that four banks accounted for all the business. The Government of the day, despite urging from myself and others, did absolutely nothing about the problem. As a result, we went into the banking crisis with massively over-concentrated ownership and damaged banks that are no longer able to perform properly. We are seeking reform, supporting new challenger banks though the business bank, and dealing with a problem that should have been dealt with a decade ago.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

9. What recent assessment he has made of the take-up of apprenticeships.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Skills (Matthew Hancock)]

There were 520,000 apprenticeship starts in the academic year 2011-12. That is almost double the number in 2010. Our priority is to make apprenticeships both widely available and the very best quality, rooting out poor provision and enforcing a minimum duration. As we speak, 750,000 people are on an apprenticeship, which is a record: it is more than at any time in our history.

[Mr Robertson]

I am grateful to the Minister for that response. As he knows, I have a lot of engineering companies in my constituency, the largest being GE Aviation, which has more than 100 apprentices. Nevertheless, those companies find it difficult to recruit young people. Is the Minister satisfied that schools have adequate incentives to promote the concept of apprenticeship schemes, and will he consider awarding them recognition status marks for each apprenticeship that is taken up?

[Matthew Hancock]

We introduced a new duty on schools to provide independent and impartial advice in September, and Ofsted is looking at, and will report on, how well that is being implemented. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who brings together companies in his constituency to promote skills and working together, so that even though companies compete locally and nationally with their products, they come together on the skills issue to make sure that they give new skills to young people, rather than poaching from each other.