Liz McInnes
Main Page: Liz McInnes (Labour - Heywood and Middleton)Department Debates - View all Liz McInnes's debates with the Department for Education
(9 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberThere is no complacency on the part of the Department. The Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), has already set out the action the Department can take—the swift intervention—when an academy is failing. That can result eventually in an academy being rebrokered. Uplands junior school had 17 months to appoint its interim executive board and turn things around, but progress has not been sufficient. That is very unfair on the children in that school.
9. What plans her Department has to increase the number and quality of apprenticeships for 14 to 19-year-olds.
We are determined to create 3 million apprenticeships in the next five years, building on the 2.2 million created in the past five years. We will be requiring all public sector bodies to employ apprentices, and will legislate to protect the term “apprenticeship” against misuse.
Figures from the House of Commons Library show that there were 440,000 apprenticeship starts in England in the last academic year, but almost 40% of those starts were made by over-25s, and starts made by under-19s have declined as a share of total starts since 2010. Why is the Minister not doing more to help young adults into apprenticeship schemes?
The Government do not share with the Opposition the obsession with the idea that, somehow, anybody over the age of 25 doing an apprenticeship is wasting their time or the Government’s money. We absolutely agree that we want as many young people as possible to have the opportunity, but that includes people aged between 19 and 24, and over-25s. We want the entire programme to expand, which is why we are investing in it. We will deliver 3 million apprenticeships to people of all ages over the next five years.