Lord Cormack
Main Page: Lord Cormack (Conservative - Life peer)
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, that was a lot of questions. The figure for engineering and manufacturing technologies in 2014, as I said, was 6.8%. The latest apprenticeship pay survey estimates that the median hourly pay across England for level 2 and 3 female apprentices, who comprise about 95%, is £6.38. That is higher than for males, for whom the figure is £6.16. However, schools have to do more, as do we all. Schools are legally required to provide the independent advice and guidance that young people now need when making career choices, and apprenticeships have to be part of that offer. We are launching a new £10 million apprenticeship campaign in May aimed at young people, their influencers and their employers because role models matter so much. We need to let people know about the breadth of employment opportunities through the apprenticeship route.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, I declare an interest as the founder and chairman of the William Morris Craft Fellowships, which have been given to men and women over the last 30 years. How many of the 366,000 apprentices to which the Minister referred undertook true craft apprenticeships of real duration?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
My Lords, I have talked to my noble friend about craft apprenticeships. I do not have the actual number for them but I share his enthusiasm for ensuring that we have apprenticeships in those areas, and I think our new system will help with that. Apprenticeships now are all of a decent quality: they have to be paid jobs; they have to involve substantial training of the kind you need in, for example, filigree gold or artwork; they have to last 12 months, on top of school; and they have to lead to full competency in occupations. That is the kind of change we need in this country, building on the sort of experience that you see in Germany, Switzerland and so on, where apprenticeships have been more successful.