Apprenticeships

Lord Aberdare Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I am afraid that I do not agree with the noble Baroness. It is absolutely right that the Government should be ambitious for young people and that we should offer them good quality university routes, apprenticeships and technical routes. That is why we have this ambitious target and why we are also looking to reform technical education, on which the Lord Sainsbury review, which will be published shortly, will help to lead the way. Moreover, since 2010 some 2.7 million apprenticeships have been started, so I believe that it is a worthwhile target. We would be letting our young people down if we did not offer them a whole range of opportunities to get the good jobs they deserve.

[Lord Aberdare (CB)]

My Lords, to date there have been only some 1,400 starts on the trailblazer apprenticeships under the new standards framework. What plans are there to retain the existing apprenticeship frameworks, and how do the Government propose to increase uptake of the new standards as the existing frameworks are closed?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

The noble Lord is right, in that we are moving towards a new framework. We want to improve quality, which is why we are giving employers the opportunity to design apprenticeships that are more demanding and responsive to the needs of business, looking to have more rigorous testing and grading at the end of an apprenticeship, and giving employers control of funding so that they can become more demanding customers. That way, both employers and young people involved in apprenticeships get the quality training that we all want to see.