Lord Snape
Main Page: Lord Snape (Labour - Life peer)Enterprise Bill [HL]
Lord Snape Excerpts
Lord Snape (Lab)
It would be helpful to me and perhaps to the Committee if the Minister would indicate whether she intends to refer to the matter arising from the amendment so ably moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, on which I congratulate him. It is not often that I find myself agreeing with much of what the noble Lord says. Perhaps I may say that I consider him to be on the more progressive side in these matters. After all, we sparred on a Bill earlier this year when he defended resolutely and ably the brewers and their incentives. To find him now speaking in such a progressive manner, albeit on behalf of the Engineering Employers’ Federation, is a pleasant occurrence. Arising from the noble Lord’s amendment, it would be helpful if the Minister could indicate whether she will speak about the quality of apprenticeships on this amendment or, as I suspect, on the next group. My response depends on her further response to the noble Lord on this group.
Lord Young of Norwood Green
I support the intention of the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson. I will not damn it with faint praise or criticism of previous actions. That has already been done by my noble friend.
Lord Snape
To be fair, I was praising wholeheartedly the intervention by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson. I do not think my noble friend should dilute my praise in that manner.
Lord Young of Norwood Green
Perish the thought: my humble apologies to my noble friend. I welcome this, perhaps because I had anticipated this debate. The Minister indicated that she would be dealing with quality, so I presume that this is the occasion on which she will deal with it. In the debate on the statutory instrument, I raised the issue of the Ofsted report quoted in the Times, which states:
“Some apprentices were not aware that they were classed as such, while others did not receive broader training or support to improve their English and maths. In the retail, catering and care industries, inspectors found apprentices cleaning floors, making coffee or serving sandwiches. Other employers used apprenticeships—which are wholly government-funded for those aged 16 to 18 and part-funded for older apprentices—to accredit the existing skills of their staff, Ofsted said. Sir Michael will tell business leaders in the West Midlands”,
where this survey took place,
“that employers, teachers and training providers are among the ‘guilty parties’ who must improve. ‘The fact that only 5 per cent of our youngsters go into an apprenticeship at 16 is little short of a disaster,’ he will say”.
That is a really serious and worrying criticism given the number of apprenticeships in the areas that he described.
The noble Earl, Lord Courtown, gave us a letter today. I have had a chance only to skim through it and think about whether it really does give an assurance that quality will be capable of being achieved in the drive to increase by a significant amount the number of apprenticeships. In the letter he says:
“An ‘approved English apprenticeship agreement’ carries the status of a contract of service. That means that employment and health and safety laws apply. The apprenticeship agreement confirms that the apprentice is undertaking an apprenticeship and specifies the standard they are working towards completing”.
That is good. I will not quote everything in the letter, but he then says:
“In addition to this, we have also introduced a new ‘Statement of Commitment’ which is signed by the employer, training provider and apprentice and sets out the key expectations, roles and responsibilities of each party involved in the apprenticeship and complements the approved English apprenticeship agreement”.
That is okay. However, what I really wanted to know was how we are going to check that, though they may have signed these agreements, they are actually delivering what they say they will. He said:
“In addition, the Skills Funding Agency … runs the apprenticeships helpline which was given an expanded remit in the summer, enabling anyone involved in an apprenticeship—not just the apprentice—to raise concerns about any element of how the apprenticeship is being delivered”.
The next sentence I found really interesting and I would welcome a comment from the Minister:
“The SFA have rigorous checks in place and have embarked on a programme of staff training to ensure that these issues are dealt with effectively”.
What exactly does that mean? There are an awful lot of apprenticeships going on. The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, talked about mystery shoppers. I do not know whether the SFA will be the mystery shoppers, but a serious point is being raised. How are we going to ensure a number of things: that the quality of an apprenticeship is actually being delivered as per the contract, and that the training provider, in allocating a young person to an employer, is confident that that employer has a track record of delivering apprenticeships? How will we ensure that it is a safe working environment? I raised this issue previously. We had the appalling situation, I think just over a year or so ago, where a young apprentice went to work in the morning and never returned home—they died in an appalling workplace environment. Are we serious about enhancing the status of apprenticeships and ensuring that parents feel confident about the quality of apprenticeships?
The comment in the letter:
“The SFA have rigorous checks in place and have embarked on a programme of staff training to ensure that these issues are dealt with effectively”,
refers back to a point raised by my noble friend Lady Corston, who is not currently in the Room. She talked about young people employed for very short periods of time in what purported to be an apprenticeship but clearly was not. I have not heard of any periods as short as that, but certainly the Government declared that they would not support apprenticeships being described as such if they were for less than a year, which most people would say is about as short as one could get for an apprenticeship. Some might express concern that the period of time ought to be longer. However, my concern is whether the Skills Funding Agency will be able to deliver for the Government in terms of ensuring that there is real quality in apprenticeships.
Baroness Byford (Con)
My Lords, I apologise to the Committee that I could not be here at the start of the sitting. I shall speak in particular to my noble friend Lord Hodgson’s amendment, because other amendments in this group state “may”, while that of my noble friend states “must”. That may make it more difficult for the Minister, who will probably say that she does not like that wording, but I hope that she will take on board the thrust behind it.
Having listened to the discussion around the Committee this afternoon, we are clearly all concerned about having minimum standards. There is nothing worse than people going into training or apprenticeships and coming out feeling that it was not worth while, there is no job prospect at the end and they have totally wasted their time. That is very bad for the individual, but neither is it good for the employer or the college helping them.
I would like to add two things to what my noble friend said so ably. First, two years ago, the Lord Mayor of London at the time, Fiona Woolf, put a lot of force behind apprenticeships within City livery companies. As people around the Committee will know, the City livery companies were guilds in the olden days and set standards, and many still do today. Secondly, the Minister knows of my interest in agricultural colleges. I was visiting an agricultural college local to me recently, opening new facilities to enable young people to have a better start. I was talking to one or two of the apprentices. It is interesting that one or two who came in, particularly on the engineering side, had not really thought of going on to take further degrees or any further educational training, but had become so inspired by what they were learning at that college that one or two, although not all of them, reconsidered doing a further level of training, which I thought was hugely encouraging.
What I want to add my voice to is the point about the quality of the apprenticeships being offered—and assessing it is absolutely crucial—and the job prospects for those young people afterwards, whether it is going in for further training or whether there is a job at the end. Some I talked to were very clear that, after the training that they were getting, they were very hopeful that a job would follow because they had gained skills that a couple of days earlier they certainly had not got. From listening to the various contributions from around the Committee this afternoon, I am well aware that this is not a common factor among everybody; there are some good training schemes, but some are poor.
In my noble friend’s Amendment 50AA, he calls for,
“minimum standards for an apprenticeship agreement”,
which should be looked at after the first 12 months, and then the Secretary of State should consult those that the Secretary of State,
“considers appropriate on the details of such regulations, prior to publication”.
My noble friend’s amendment has given us a good steer, and I hope that the Minister will be able to give us something positive. Clearly, with my noble friend’s amendment, it is a question not of “may” but of “must”, providing a great direction to this Government on how we need to improve the quality while at the same time encouraging more people to take up apprenticeships as a further step to wherever they go in life. I support my noble friend’s amendment.
Lord Snape
My Lords, in listening to the debate so far, I think that one thing that unites all of us in the Committee is the desire to see proper apprenticeships in future years. Young people are understandably cynical about what they see as the exploitation that has often taken place in many of the so-called apprenticeship schemes that were introduced. As the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, said, they are not proper apprenticeships as we would understand them. I do not blame the present Government for that situation, or even their predecessor; these things have been going on for many years. I recollect more than 40 years ago, as a very junior member of Harold Wilson’s Government, which dates me somewhat, learning with some degree of concern about what was happening with the youth training schemes. They were introduced in all good faith by a Labour Government but abused by employers, who took on youngsters and promised them jobs in future that never materialised or for which they were not properly trained. In one case that stuck in my mind, they were offered a permanent job, but only at YTS rate, which was, of course, less than the traditional rate for the job. So there is a widespread concern and cynicism among young people about these schemes.
A few weeks ago, we had a debate about apprenticeships on the Floor of the House, and I drew your Lordships’ attention to one or two of the abuses taking place at that time. I do not wish to repeat them chapter and verse, but it is instructive that one scheme in particular—an apprenticeship advertised by Subway, the sandwich maker—reverberated through the technical press around the world. The job had been advertised as an apprenticeship; the description was “a sandwich architect”. I asked whether somebody taking that particular qualification would move from white to brown bread or cut the crusts off or move to gluten-free bread before six months was up. But one thing that that job certainly did not do was qualify any young person in any meaningful way towards a better future.
There was another so-called apprenticeship advertised by a firm of estate agents; the young person concerned was supposed to go around and look at various properties, to check advertisements in the trade press to see where the properties were advertised for sale and see whether it was possible to lure the owners of those properties from the books of one company to another. To do that job one would inevitably need a car. There was no mention. Indeed, the young person who came to talk to me about this said he followed this up and there was no fuel allowance or any other allowance for the time involved in the role. He was supposed to drive around, presumably at his own expense. He was 21 years old and possessed a car, but, as he said, at £2.37 an hour—which was the advertised apprenticeship rate—he did not see that it was possible for him to do it and how it would qualify him for the future.
I hope the Minister can give the Committee some reassurance about the future. I welcome the Government’s intention—I am not quite sure how they will implement it—to outlaw some of the practices. The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, referred to people looking for grants in the way that they do. Human nature being what it is, that is how certain people react. It does not give young people any great hope for the future. Indeed, I have used this word twice before, but I shall use it again: it gives them a great degree of cynicism about the way their talents are exploited.
As my noble friend Lady Corston said, for those of a certain generation, apprenticeships usually, if not inevitably, meant in engineering, heavy industry and that sort of area. It was accepted that although you might be paid a little bit less than some of your contemporaries, after a five or six-year apprenticeship you were well qualified and could see a way forward in the world of work for the rest of your life. It is not possible to say that under schemes like the one I have just mentioned. I will be interested to hear from the Minister what plans she has to stop that sort of exploitation of young people and to give them some genuine hope that the work they do as apprentices will properly qualify them for the world of work in future.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
I place on record my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Snape, for his very welcome but quite unexpectedly effusive support for what I have been saying. I hope he will forgive me, but when we get to Amendments 53ZC and 53ZD, about the pubs code, at about 7.30 pm, normal service will be resumed.
Lord Snape
I hope that we are not going to do any such thing at 7.30 pm. I understand that we are dealing with pubs on Wednesday, not today. I look forward to the noble Lord adopting his customary reactionary—if I may say so—position as far as pubs and publicans are concerned. Of course, I will adopt my usual progressive position, to use phraseology that would make Jeremy proud of me, I am sure.
Baroness Golding (Lab)
How is this section of the Bill related to late payments, especially for small and medium-sized firms? With the best will in the world, you can have an apprentice for a year and suddenly late payment means that that firm is struggling to maintain the apprenticeship. Is there anything in this section which relates to the first part about late payments?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Morris, for intervening. I can certainly say that this is a very important point. I know that the task forces set up to look at what can be done for employees who, sadly, lose their jobs are on to this point on apprenticeships. I know that in Redcar some new jobs have already been found, but I am certainly happy to talk to the noble Lord further. I am happy to put that on the record.
Lord Snape
Will the Minister disabuse either me or the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, on our progress today and say whether we intend to move on to the clauses that refer to the pub companies, in the way that the noble Lord obviously feels that we are about to do?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
Is the noble Lord asking about the target for today’s discussion?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
I think we are trying to get to Amendment 52Q, not to pass it—so he can go to the pub.
Lord Snape
We can go to the pub after Amendment 52Q, as the noble Baroness said, but I am grateful for that clarification. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, is not too disappointed.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts
I would be delighted to discuss the issue of a pub code with the noble Lord at any time. All I would say is that he should not describe me as “reactionary”, but as “realistic”.