Marco Longhi
Main Page: Marco Longhi (Conservative - Dudley North)Department Debates - View all Marco Longhi's debates with the HM Treasury
(3 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Dr Jamie Wallis (Bridgend) (Con)
Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Rishi Sunak)
Our plan for jobs supports retraining and upskilling by tripling the number of traineeships, expanding sector-based work academies, incentivising apprenticeship hiring and providing funding for new, free, advanced technical courses and digital skills bootcamps under the lifetime skills guarantee.
Rishi Sunak
My hon. Friend is right to highlight the importance of our focus on young people. More than half the jobs that have been lost since the start of the pandemic have been of those under the age of 25 and their rates of furlough are much higher than others. That is why, acting very early last year, we created the kickstart programme, which is creating hundreds of thousands of jobs across the country, including in my hon. Friend’s constituency. I urge all Members to talk to their local businesses to get them excited and joined up to the kickstart scheme, and to provide young people with the chance of a brighter future.
Marco Longhi
Small and medium-sized enterprises are often referenced as the beating heart of the UK economy, employing the largest number of people. That is certainly the case in my Dudley North constituency and across the west midlands, so will my right hon. Friend commit to working with colleagues in the Department for Education, the Department for Work and Pensions and with business to ensure that we improve engagement with small businesses, in particular in the design and funding of apprenticeship schemes, as they need providers to deliver much more at foundation level 2, which the current funding framework is less able to deliver? This would help to bring about the retraining revolution that our brilliant Mayor Andy Street talks about.