Apprenticeships

Lord Aberdare Excerpts

Wednesday 4th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

We will be publishing further proposals on funding and the logistics of this scheme in June. I note the noble Baroness’s points but we should focus on apprenticeships. I am a great one for focusing on an area and getting it done right, rather than trying to extend it right across the board of training, as she suggests. But of course we can learn from our experience.

[Lord Aberdare (CB)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Nye (Lab)]

My Lords—

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)]

My Lords, I think that it is the turn of the Cross Benches and then we need to move on.

[Lord Aberdare]

My Lords, Carolyn Fairbairn, the director-general of the employers’ organisation, the CBI, said last week that a radical rethink of the plans for the apprenticeship levy is needed if the Government are to meet their target of 3 million new apprenticeships, and that they need to be trialled before a full rollout. What is the Minister’s response to these concerns?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

We have of course been trialling them through our trailblazer scheme, but the suggestion from the CBI that we should delay the levy and the new apprenticeships is a mistake. The year 2017 is a long way away. For decades, no Government, including ours, have sufficiently addressed the fact that business invests too little in skills development. Frankly, it is time we made the change.