Apprenticeship Levy

Lord Grade of Yarmouth Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge]

My Lords, on behalf of the Government, I thank the noble Lord for his work as an apprenticeship ambassador. The apprenticeship levy only came into force in April 2017, so there will be some developments in its implementation. We are committed to improve the working of the levy to ensure that it continues to deliver the skilled workforce that businesses of all sizes need. As the noble Lord highlights, it is driven by employers. We will give further detail on the review in due course and will ensure the involvement of all employers. We acknowledge that ensuring the scheme is driven by employers setting standards for their own businesses is key to its success.

[Lord Grade of Yarmouth (Con)]

My Lords, the creative industries in this country are one of the great growing and successful sectors of our economy—as I think even the Treasury would agree, in a weak moment. In the creative industries, we face a terrible skills shortage. There is a technical issue with the apprenticeship levy which prohibits access to it for those industries because, for good reason, most screen productions are special purpose vehicles. The creative industries need these apprenticeships; there is huge demand for them and their great social mobility. Can I prevail on my noble friend to take this up with the Treasury and unblock it?

[Baroness Berridge]

My Lords, the Government are aware of that specific problem in relation to the creative industries, which also arises partly because many of the people in that sector are sole traders. Because an apprenticeship now has to be for a minimum of one year, finding someone who can take on an apprentice for that period can be quite burdensome. We are aware of the skills gap and the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education is developing 16 new standards specifically for the creative industries. There is also a project between DfE and DCMS to work with ScreenSkills, which has agreed to become the employer so that apprentices can be placed in a number of TV productions and other locations. It sounds like a fantastic opportunity.