Technical and Vocational Education

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

Plenty have done so, including me. I went out to recruit one apprentice and came away with two because the applicants were so good. They are both absolutely brilliant. There are many more in the Department—there are now 58 apprentices in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. I recommend an apprentice to everyone.

[Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)]

It might help my hon. Friend to know that, as an employer, I took on an apprentice under the Labour Government. The course he was required to do and the apprenticeship bore no relationship to, and were a disaster for, each other. Quality as well as quantity has improved in recent years, which is a point Labour Members always forget.

[Matthew Hancock]

That is certainly true. I want to address an important point sensibly made by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram). He asked whether too many apprenticeships are short courses and whether they are not high enough quality. It is true that the Government inherited a system in which apprenticeships could be less than six months. That was wrong, so we have said that every apprenticeship must be for a minimum of a year. We have increased quality while increasing the number of apprentices.

It is good news for the nation that the Opposition have accepted their failure in office—the wording of their motion shows that they forgot half the population— and now back our reforms. Some say that imitation is flattery, and I suppose they are right. On Sunday, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central called for a new elite grade of master teachers. That sounds like a good idea, and we have them. They are called specialist leaders in education—top teachers who get dedicated training and share their expertise with other schools. There are 3,800 of them in England. By next year, we will have 5,000.

On improving reforms and driving up standards, the hon. Gentleman mentioned technical degrees, which the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) described yesterday. They sound like a good idea, and we have them. More than 200 colleges already teach technical degrees. It is called higher education in further education. I suggest he goes around the country and has a look.