Creative Industries: Apprenticeship Levy

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Tuesday 4th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

On behalf of my noble friend Lady Bonham- Carter of Yarnbury and at her request, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in her name on the Order Paper.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My Lords, the apprenticeship levy is helping employers in all sectors to make sustainable investment in the skills that they need to grow and is driving up the quality of apprenticeships. We have acted on feedback from employers in our world-leading creative industries about how they can realise the benefits of apprenticeships. That is why this year, we introduced additional flexibilities in how the levy can be used and continue to support employers in building their programmes.

[Lord Foster of Bath]

I thank the Minister for the response, but it is widely accepted that for the creative industries, the apprenticeship levy is simply not fit for purpose. New figures now show that unless still greater flexibilities are built in, nearly half of the creative industries’ levy money will go unused. Why cannot levy-paying employers give even more of their unspent levy funds to apprenticeship training agencies or for other training purposes? Why can we not introduce an Open University-style credit scheme to help the many would-be creative industry apprentices who cannot meet the current minimum 12-month employment rule?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

The noble Lord alluded to the fact that we have raised the transfer percentage rate from 10% to 25%, and we believe that that is the right approach. Much work is being done regarding the creative industries. For example, the focus, as the noble Lord will know, is on standards rather than frameworks. We have already developed and put through 26 standards in the creative sector, with another 16 on the go. I recognise that the creative sector is more of a challenge, in that it is quite disparate, being made up of a number of small businesses, partnerships and single people working in that sector.