Apprenticeships: Levy

Lord Fox Excerpts

Monday 25th June 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Fox]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the effectiveness of the Apprenticeship Levy.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My Lords, the apprenticeship levy is an important part of our reforms to raise the quality of apprenticeships. We are seeing real improvement in the quality of apprenticeships as a result of our wider changes. The number of people starting on new employer-designed standards is almost 10 times higher than last year, but there is still more to do and we continue to engage closely and regularly with businesses as they plan their future apprenticeship programmes.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his Answer but, if he will excuse me, it is papering over the cracks. Last autumn we saw a big fall in the number of apprenticeship registrations, in February they were down 40% and in March—the latest numbers we have—they are down 58%. This is not a blip; this is a trend. When will the Government abandon their completely unreachable and unworkable 3 million target and really focus on quality?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

We are certainly not going to abandon this: we believe that it is working well. We have explained already that it takes time to bed in. Yes, I acknowledge that starts have dropped, but we make a comparison year on year to last March when there was a considerable spike in the old apprenticeships. At the moment, 37% of people doing an apprenticeship are now starting on standards, compared to 3% last year.