Apprentices

Lord Young of Norwood Green Excerpts

Wednesday 10th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

I entirely agree with my noble friend.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)]

My Lords, while I welcome the Government’s commitment to expanding apprenticeships, including the personal commitment from the Minister, it would help if, instead of referring to 3 million, we recognised that of that 3 million at least 50% are accounted for by the re-skilling of over-25s—not that I deplore that. The real challenge, as the Minister well knows, is to expand the number of apprenticeships in the 16 to 18, and indeed the 16 to 24, age range. What can be done about that when significant numbers of employers still do not participate in apprenticeships? I think it is still less than one in five; that is the statistic.

I therefore have a couple of recommendations. First, does the Minister agree that the Government should consider making apprenticeships a statutory requirement in all public sector contracts? Secondly, will she consider looking at the local enterprise partnerships and local authorities that have the best track record so that best practice can be identified around the country?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

My Lords, that is a subject for a debate. However, I can say that on the public sector side we will be taking steps to have more apprenticeships where procurement contracts are involved. On the point about the local enterprise partnerships, some of them are doing some brilliant stuff on skills and apprenticeships, which we should publicise much more fully.