Apprenticeships and Skills (Public Procurement Contracts) Bill

Luciana Berger Excerpts

Friday 1st November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne]

The simple answer is yes, and when we get to that part of my contribution I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be won over to my argument. Actually, it is already happening in many local and central Government Departments, but there is a lot more we could do, which is why I hope he will support my Bill today.

Apprenticeships provide us with inspirational ways of realising our ambitions and enabling us to break the current cycle. One good example is the 50/50 scheme set up by my own Labour-controlled Tameside council, which awards up to 50 apprenticeship grants of £1,000 to employers who take on a 16, 17 or 18-year-old Tameside resident. Over the past few years Tameside council, working closely with the Connexions service, has gradually reduced the number of young people in my constituency who are not engaged in employment, education or training. Some of those young people want to learn while they are in work, and the initiative is intended to ensure that they have the opportunity to do so. Schemes such as 50/50 recognise the particular problems faced by young people in the current economic climate, and support them. They are training a new generation for economic recovery in places such as Denton and Reddish.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am sure that my hon. Friend also welcomes the Liverpool Futures programme, which is run by a partnership of our chamber of commerce, Liverpool city council and the Eldonian Group, and is helping up to 3,500 young people to become apprentices.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I do indeed. There is much good practice throughout the country that we should be championing. I believe that my Bill will encourage other public bodies to do what my hon. Friend’s council, my council and, probably, the councils of Members in all parts of the House seek to achieve. Notwithstanding all that good work, however, it is a sad state of affairs when fewer than one in 10 employers offer apprenticeships. Far too many young people are being told that they have an apprenticeship after a course lasting 12 weeks or less, and one in five apprentices receive no actual training of any kind. I believe that, between them, Government procurement and my Bill could enable us to change that position.

I am proud of my party’s record in this regard. Under the last Labour Government, the number of apprenticeships more than quadrupled. We launched the official Office of Government Commerce guidance to encourage the growth of apprenticeships, whose principles are also evident in the Bill. I have been informed by both the Public Bill Office and the House of Commons Library that it is still the most relevant guidance for apprentices. The last Labour Government proceeded with major projects such as the kick-start housing scheme and Building Schools for the Future, and their work with the contractors on the Olympic park resulted in the creation of thousands of new apprenticeship opportunities as part of public procurement. That is a legacy of which I think we can be rightly proud.

It was the last Labour Government who ensured that skills and apprenticeships would be an integral part of the Crossrail project that we launched and that, I am pleased to say, the current Government have retained. It was our party that established the Tunnelling and Underground Construction Academy, and constructed the framework for a procurement strategy based on taking apprentices from the local London boroughs. That was crucial to ensuring that young people in some of the most deprived communities in our country have the skills training that will be necessary for the next generation of engineers.

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[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, because while there was some good practice in the national health service, this is one area where we have witnessed in recent months the rolling back of skills training. I do not know whether that is because the new NHS bodies have been so fixated on reorganisation that they rather neglected skills training, or whether it is purely because some of the new bodies do not realise that they have the power when commissioning services—as clinical commissioning groups have, as providers of public services—to ask some of the people bidding for those contracts to provide apprenticeships. My Bill would make it quite clear that public bodies—my definition would encompass clinical commissioning groups—would be able, as part of their contracting process, to ask companies that bid for those contracts to provide adequate skills training.

[Luciana Berger]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on introducing today’s private Member’s Bill. It is absolutely fantastic and I am delighted to be supporting it today. Does my hon. Friend accept that in some large infrastructure projects in some areas, there can often be some local ill feeling that a lot of the people coming to work on the projects come from far away? I think of a project locally, on Merseyside, not naming any names, where there is a lot of ill feeling that people are travelling long distances—from as far away as Bristol—to work on it. Does he agree that a scheme such as he is proposing today, to encourage local apprenticeships, would really help to develop local skills, so that for future projects, it will not be necessary to ship people in from far and beyond?

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is one reason why my Bill makes it clear that those opportunities for apprenticeships and training should be advertised locally, so that local young people in constituencies such as Liverpool, Wavertree will have access to those skills training positions that are being made available in the city of Liverpool. At any one time, umpteen posts will be being made available in Liverpool, but if we do not tell young people in Liverpool—as in my constituency, there is structural, long-term unemployment and long-term youth unemployment there—we shall never break that cycle. This very simple measure will therefore make a big difference in a city such as Liverpool, along with the other areas of the country that we have already mentioned.

It is worth placing on the record that the cross-party Business, Innovation and Skills Committee report on apprenticeships recommended a similar approach in respect of public procurement. The House of Commons Committee argued that the Government should aim for the benchmark used by many leading businesses in the construction sector, including Kier, Willmott Dixon and Laing, whereby for every £1 million spent by Government Departments and their agencies on public procurement, at least one new apprenticeship place should be created. Some estimates suggest that that could create tens of thousands of apprenticeships, although my Bill is much less ambitious and makes no commitment on the numbers of apprenticeships within public procurement projects.

I am very pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) is not only here today to support my Bill but is one of its sponsors. I pay tribute to the ten-minute rule Bill that she introduced a few years ago, which has led to important Front-Bench policy developments in the Labour party and, I believe, helped to build the head of steam for our campaign today. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend.

My private Member’s Bill has attracted supporters, including the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians, the Association of Colleges, the National Union of Students and—although I do not want to put off the hon. Members for Bury North and for Shipley—Unite and the GMB. However, we still do not know whether today those on the Government Front Bench will back this very sensible and very modest measure to help boost apprenticeships.

Almost 1 million young people are unemployed and we must act now to prevent another lost generation. A public procurement policy as outlined in my private Member’s Bill could create even more and better apprenticeships, and we would start to transform the numbers and the life chances of countless young people. So my plea to all today is to support this simple measure. It makes economic sense and it is common sense, but it is also the right thing to do and, in these financially constrained times it would be cost-neutral to the public purse. Therefore I urge all Members and the Government to support my Bill in the vote today.

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[Philip Davies]

I am still reeling from the hon. Lady’s opening remark. That is how rumours start in this place. It would probably be more damaging to her reputation than to mine if that rumour were to spread. I will try to come to the meat of the Bill and put to the back of my mind the temptation that she put in my mind about what happens on a Friday morning. For the record, it is the first I have known about it.

The reason I agree so much with what the hon. Gentleman said is that we need to go back to the purpose of apprenticeships. It is a shame that my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) is no longer in his place because if I am wrong about this, he would have put me right. Apprenticeships date back to the reign of Elizabeth I.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am really looking forward to the history lesson on apprenticeships that we are about to receive. However, I want to press the hon. Gentleman for a third time on the fundamental question from the Opposition Benches. If he does not wish to respond to us, perhaps he would like to respond to his constituents, who I am sure are listening very closely to his comments in this debate. Will he please confirm to the House exactly which clause he takes issue with? It is only a four-clause Bill, and he will have the opportunity in Committee, should he support it, as he clearly does to some extent, to pick apart any particular clause. I think that the whole House would be keen to know at this juncture what issue he takes with the Bill.

[Philip Davies]

I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s confidence that my constituents listen carefully to the speeches that I make in Parliament. That has been a revelation this morning. To be perfectly honest, I was not aware that anyone listened to my speeches in Parliament, but if my constituents are listening, it is a great boost for me to know that they are hanging on to every word. It is certainly news to me. They are very good at hiding the fact that they are hanging on to my every word.

My fundamental problem with the Bill—which I reiterate in response to the various interventions, and then I hope that I will be able to make some progress, which I am sure we all want—is that it will create more confusion about whether these are requirements or just something that can be done. If this were required of people in the public sector, I would appreciate the sentiment, but it would be misguided and would lead to some unintended consequences. If it is not compulsory, it is completely unnecessary, because any public body can do these things anyway. The hon. Gentleman made an interesting point about EU procurement and the role that that plays in this, but I will come on to that later because I want to show why the Bill might be counter-productive and have some unfortunate unintended consequences.

The reason why the hon. Gentleman is right about the quality of apprenticeships is that that is how they started in the reign of Elizabeth I. They were very limited and they lasted between seven and 14 years, which was far in excess of the time needed to obtain skills in a particular sector, but it showed that the person who had passed their apprenticeship was an expert in their field. That is what I would like us to return to; not necessarily that they would take up to 14 years to complete, but that a completed apprenticeship would allow someone to be perceived as an expert in their field. The hon. Gentleman was right to say that that is what we want to achieve.

I do not want to go into the detail of apprenticeships in the time of Elizabeth I, but I can do so if anyone is interested.

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[Philip Davies]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for showing such interest. Perhaps what happened in Elizabethan times should be the blueprint for more apprenticeships today. It is always wise to look through history. Many jobs had a formal apprenticeship in those days. There is an interesting blog on life in the Elizabethan period which refers to the statute of artificers, which gives details about how apprentices used to be handled and, whether true or a little fabricated, it gives some idea of what apprenticeships were like at the time. The statute governed all trades and crafts and states:

“Employment is to be for no less than a year at a time in any of the sciences, crafts, mysteries or arts of clothiers, woollen cloth weavers, tuckers, fullers, cloth workers, sheermen, dyers, hosiers, tailors”

and the rest of people in such trades. There were also fines. If someone was retained for a year, they could not be let go at the end of that term without notice of a quarter of a year. People could be given a 40 shilling fine if they failed to keep to that.

The hon. Member for Denton and Reddish might want to consider a system of carrots and sticks to ensure that employers and employees get the most out of apprenticeships, because they are a massive investment for both and it is essential that both keep their side of the bargain. A system of carrots and sticks would take us back to where apprenticeships first started and probably help the apprentices.

I support what the Government are doing to improve the quality of apprenticeships, because it seems to me—the Minister will correct me if I am wrong, although I hope that I am not—that they are trying to make them much more employer-led. That bottom-up approach means that employers are provided with the skills they need and can train people to do things that are of value in the workplace, rather than something that is academic and does not achieve anything practical.

The Government have also been trying to make apprenticeships more robust and to ensure that they mean something, and that is exactly the way to go. They must not just be a name tacked on to the back of any kind of training. Given the success of the Government’s apprenticeship scheme—I have heard many figures for the number of apprentices, but it seems to be around a few hundred thousand—it seems to me that we should be encouraging the Government to pursue their current strategy, rather than reinventing the wheel, because it seems to be working well. We have heard examples of people turning down opportunities to do degrees in order to do apprenticeships because they see them as a better route to success. I think that is to be commended. The Government are doing such a good job, so it seems bizarre to consider interfering with something that is working particularly well.

I am pleased that apprenticeships, as a result of the Government’s desire to make them more rigorous and credible, are finally getting the status they deserve. I have long believed that far too many people go to university. The education system had become a kind of conveyor belt that people could not get off until they finished university, and not going to university was frowned on. That was greatly damaging, because too many people were leaving university but could not get graduate jobs, and now they will have lots of debt, which I regret. I never agreed with tuition fees, either their introduction by the Labour party or their increase by this Government, all of which I opposed. Those people became disillusioned. I think that it has helped foster an attitude of wanting to start at the top, because the concept of starting at the bottom and working their way up has become alien to too many people. I think that the status apprenticeships now have, with people learning something worthwhile on the job and seeing a path to a future career, is something we should all celebrate.

It has been a big week for apprenticeships. The Prime Minister, perhaps in anticipation of this Bill, was at the BMW Mini car plant in Oxford on Monday, where he confirmed the Government’s unequivocal support for apprenticeships and promised to deliver the best apprenticeships in the world, which I am sure was music to the ears of the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish, who made that such a part of his speech. Then the Minister for Skills and Enterprise issued a written statement on the future of apprenticeships in England, which the Minister here today might mention in greater detail when he sets out the Government’s view. The statement read:

“Apprenticeships are at the heart of the Government’s drive to give people of all ages the skills employers need to grow and compete. They already deliver strong returns for the economy, for employers and for apprentices. A record 1.5 million Apprenticeships have been started since 2010.”

That seems a very good record.

I do not know whether this is relevant to the Bill, because it appears not to focus on these industries, but the Government seem to be saying that the focus should be on the really highly skilled industries, including aerospace, digital, energy and utilities, electro, technical, financial services, food and drink manufacturing, life sciences and industrial sciences. They are the future of the British economy. We have to target those high-tech, highly skilled industries if we are to compete in the global economy. We should be encouraging the Government to support those firms.

I come across high-tech manufacturing businesses in my constituency that are really struggling to find employees with the relevant skills for their industries, which is very sad. If we want to make apprenticeships work better, we should focus on ensuring that we have the right apprenticeships in those areas. I am not entirely convinced that the biggest area we should be concentrating on at the moment is public procurement. I do not doubt that it is worth while, but I am not sure that it will take us to the stage we need to get to.

[Luciana Berger]

Is not the point that we need more apprenticeships in all areas? There are many schemes, including on Merseyside, focused on those highly skilled areas, such as ICT, engineering and aerospace, and indeed we have Daresbury on Merseyside, but we also have a local scheme in Liverpool that creates apprenticeships in our landscaping services. There are lots of different sectors where young people can play a vital role, develop skills and have employment right through their lives. I was confused by the hon. Gentleman’s interventions earlier. If we are spending public money on building and creating things, why should we not at the same time encourage local authorities to spend that money on skilling and improving our young people?

[Philip Davies]

I intend to come to that point later, but the point I will make briefly in response to the hon. Lady now is that we are all in favour of apprenticeships, as I have made clear, but hopefully we are not all equally in favour of apprenticeships at any price or at any standard. It is no good just saying that we want more apprenticeships; we want more proper apprenticeships that lead to proper jobs and train people in a proper skill so that they can become an expert. One of my concerns about the Bill is that some local authorities might go through the motion and go back to where we were before, with apprenticeships that are not of the level we would all like to see just in order to tick some boxes. I know that that is not the intention behind the Bill, but sometimes I worry that that will be the unintended consequence.

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[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am delighted to take part in proceedings on this important Bill, which I support. I reiterate my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) on introducing this excellent Bill, which I believe is crucial.

I am disappointed by what the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) said over the course of 55 minutes. I cannot understand how he believes his constituents are best served by him speaking for just under an hour in Parliament in London on a Friday against a Bill that would help them, particularly the young people, into employment. I cannot wait to go and campaign for the Labour candidate in Bury North, who I know will stand up for young people who are desperate to get into employment. In the north-west of England, where we have seen an increase in unemployment, it is incumbent on all hon. Members to do everything we can, going down every single avenue, to promote employment and skills.

[Andrew Gwynne]

I will join my hon. Friend on the streets of Bury North to campaign for the Labour candidate. Does she agree that the people of Bury North will find it very hard to understand why the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) does not want job opportunities to be promoted in the local jobcentre in his constituency?

[Luciana Berger]

I listened closely to the remarks of the hon. Member for Bury North. I know how many of my constituents rely on the jobcentre for finding out about opportunities. They might not be able to afford to pay for our local paper. We do not have a free sheet—our previous free sheet is now inserted in the paid-for paper. For those reasons, the hon. Gentleman’s objection is incomprehensible.

[Andrew Gwynne]

Did not our hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) make the pertinent point that, in many of our constituencies, the free papers are no longer delivered to many of the communities to which we want to reach out with those adverts?

[Luciana Berger]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. We need to do everything we can to promote and let people know about opportunities. Our local newspapers are under a lot of pressure, including the Liverpool Echo. We used to have the Merseymart free sheet, but it is no longer available. It used to be delivered, but now it is not. People have to buy the Liverpool Echo to get the Merseymart free sheet, which is inserted in it. For all those reasons, it is important that we increasingly look to our jobcentres. The Government are asking people to use the internet more, and the jobcentre website, on which people can access opportunities virtually, is an important resource.

[Philip Davies]

Will the hon. Lady explain the difference between desirable and compulsory? There is a clear difference. It might be desirable if we eat salad every day, but I am sure she would not want to make it compulsory. It might be desirable for people to put adverts in the jobcentre, but that does not mean it should be compulsory. Does she not trust businesses in her constituency to know where to advertise jobs to get the best people for them? Does she not trust businesses in her constituency?

[Luciana Berger]

I listened carefully to the hon. Gentleman, but we are conflating various points. Businesses are free to advertise their jobs wherever they wish, but the jobcentre is a crucial resource. Jobcentre Plus requires jobseekers to apply for a number of jobs within a time period. For many people, that is the first resource they use. It is a free resource for business, and I am surprised that the hon. Member for Bury North does not want his businesses to advertise on it.

The Bill seeks to

“Require certain public procurement contracts let by public authorities to include a commitment by the contractor to provide apprenticeships and skills training; and for connected purposes.”

I support the Bill because I have met many people with experience of tendering for public procurement contracts, during which process they must specify and comply with many things. Different local authorities and public bodies, such as the NHS or education authorities, use different frameworks, but they are all very comprehensive, and because tendering companies must comply with and cover so many different things, if the contracts say nothing about apprenticeships, they often do not get included.

The Bill would not mandate apprenticeships, but would be an important tool with which to ensure an increased focus on this area. We need to do everything we can to help people into employment, particularly young people. If people do not get into employment when they leave school, college or university, it becomes increasingly difficult for them to do so over the rest of their working lives. I have met many companies that are concerned about this, but which do not understand the rules—we have discussed Europe already. The Bill would make it a lot clearer and much easier for businesses and public authorities to focus on apprenticeships.

[Andrew Gwynne]

My hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head. Above all, the Bill would give clarity to those contractors about what public bodies can and cannot ask of them.

[Luciana Berger]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that helpful clarification at a time when others have sought to confuse that point.

I do not want to take up too much of the House’s time, but I wish to support what Liverpool city council has done on apprenticeships. It has made every effort to work with partners to create apprenticeships in our city. I repeat that unemployment is rising in the north- west. Under enormous pressure from the massive cuts imposed by central Government, the Labour council in Liverpool is trying to be positive and forward-looking and to create employment opportunities. It has created 926 apprenticeships—no mean feat—by working with its service partners, including Glendale, a ground maintenance company, and BT, with which it has provided ICT apprenticeship opportunities.

The council has created hundreds of apprenticeships through the council’s investment plan for schools. The Government’s decision to scrap the Building Schools for the Future programme had a massive impact in Liverpool, where 26 schools were in the pipeline for refurbishment or rebuild. It was an absolute disgrace that the scheme was scrapped, but the council has done everything it can to go ahead with as many schools as it can afford. Knowing that investment in those schools and education buildings is vital, we have put in place our own investment plan for schools, in spite of the Government, not with their help, and now the construction firms building 12 new schools in Liverpool have committed to creating apprenticeship positions as part of their contracts. The council has done that of its own accord.

[Philip Davies]

The hon. Lady says that Liverpool council has done that already. As far as we are aware, it has not been breaking the law, so it seems that she is arguing against herself; she is saying that the Bill is not necessary, because local authorities can do it anyway.

[Luciana Berger]

If the hon. Gentleman had listened to the earlier contributions from Opposition Members, he would have heard that we were sharing best practice. Many bodies, whether local authorities or other public bodies—education trusts and the NHS spring to mind—are not aware of the opportunities and do not have that focus or direction, and therefore they do not do it. That has an impact on companies and organisations, including those in the voluntary sector, which do not include the requirement in their proposals, and everyone loses out as a result. As I have said, I have given examples of good practice, but they are not sufficient on their own. We need even more apprenticeships. It is not enough merely to celebrate what Liverpool city council has done; we need to see it being done across the board.

[Andrew Gwynne]

Is that not why it is so important to make it absolutely clear in statute that public bodies may require extra higher and advanced-level apprentices as part of a contract?

[Luciana Berger]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, who has made his point very eloquently.

[Philip Davies]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Luciana Berger]

I will give way one last time to the hon. Gentleman.

[Philip Davies]

Is the hon. Lady really saying that in order to encourage people to do something that is already legal and desirable, we need to pass an Act of Parliament? That is like saying “Statins are good for you, but some people have not realised that, so let us pass an Act of Parliament in order to tell people that statins are good for you.” Does the hon. Lady not understand the absurdity of her position?

[Luciana Berger]

I have listened carefully to what the hon. Gentleman has said, but, as many Labour Members have pointed out, the point is that not everyone is doing something that is particularly important for our nation at this juncture. I cannot stress that enough. It breaks my heart every time I meet an unemployed young person—indeed, anyone who is unemployed—or a person who needs to re-skill because opportunities no longer exist in the area where that person used to work. We need to do everything we can, proactively, to ensure that examples of good practice such as Liverpool city council— and I celebrate everything that that council is doing—are not just one-offs, but can be seen across the board. That is not happening now, and that is why we need the Bill.

I mentioned Liverpool’s investment plan for schools. It has also launched a pre-apprenticeship programme, because it acknowledges that it is hard for a young person who is not in employment, education or training even to get on to the first rung of the ladder. In partnership with City of Liverpool college, it is offering a 24-week programme to 16 and 17-year-olds who wish to gain valuable skills and enhance their employability so that they can join the full apprenticeship programme. Another programme in Liverpool is intended to help young people to develop the skills that will enable them to secure apprenticeships in music engineering. That is a fantastic scheme. We also have an “apprenticeship hub bus”, which will provide a one-stop-shop of advice and live apprenticeship job vacancies for those who are leaving education.

All that work has resulted in a reduction in the number of NEETs from 1,803 to 1,308. However, there are still 1,308 16 to 19-year-olds in Liverpool who are not in education, employment or training. We need to do all we can to remedy that, which is why I support the Bill.

I have an apprentice in my constituency office. His name is James Crombleholme, and he joined me just over a year ago. He is beginning the second year of a business administration apprenticeship, again through a programme involving Liverpool city council. If I could employ more apprentices, I would gladly do so, but ours is a small organisation, and we are doing our very best. James is gaining vital skills in the office, and is a valuable member of our team. He is a delight to have around, and he exemplifies the need for as many apprenticeships as possible. Many small organisations such as MPs’ offices should employ apprentices, and they need to be informed of that opportunity.

If public money is being spent, we should do everything to ensure that it is spent in the best possible way. That means investing in our young people and in the future of the country, particularly at a time when 2.5 million people are unemployed. That is far too many, and far too many young people are unemployed as well. The Bill’s specific focus on apprenticeships is very important, and I hope that it will be given a Second Reading.