Michael Fallon
Main Page: Michael Fallon (Conservative - Sevenoaks)Department Debates - View all Michael Fallon's debates with the Department for Education
(11 years, 8 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Michael Fallon)
I can join the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Mr Marsden) in making one point: we are all in the Chamber today to celebrate apprenticeships on the second day of national apprenticeship week. I was privileged this morning to meet Jenny Westworth, the apprentice of the year, who is an aeronautical engineer at BAE Systems near Preston.
Apprenticeships offer a huge amount. They work for the economy, they work for employers and they work for apprentices. In short, apprenticeships deliver. For the economy, apprenticeships improve productivity. For employers, apprenticeships increase morale and retention, not to mention the skills that employers need. They also work for the apprentices themselves and evidence published by the Centre for Economic and Business Research shows that the average higher apprentice increases his or her lifetime earnings by about £150,000, about as much as if he or she had gone to university.
Apprenticeships deliver and that is why over the past two years the number of apprentices starting has increased so sharply. In 2010, the coalition promised 50,000 more apprentices every year. I confirm to the House today that we have already not only delivered on that promise but exceeded it. We have all but doubled the number of apprentices starting each year, with more than 1 million starts under this Government.
Michael Fallon
I shall give way in a moment.
Apprenticeships deliver and we can now set out a more stretching goal, that is, the vision that on leaving school it will become the new norm to go either into an apprenticeship or to university. Gone are the days when a Prime Minister could set an arbitrary target for how many children should go to university, forcing some down a route that did not suit them and ignoring the rest. Gone are the days of Labour’s forgotten 50%. Gone are the days of youth unemployment rising even in the boom years. Gone are the days of uncontrolled immigration as the only answer to skill shortages, of dumbing down, of worklessness, of welfare and of the race to the bottom. Instead, the Government aspire that all the young people of this great nation should reach their personal best and that they should all succeed and fulfil their potential.
Of course, such a change is an economic imperative, as we cannot afford the drag anchor of the welfare bill in this global race, but there is also a moral imperative to support everyone in reaching their potential—for the many, not the few. How will we do that? Of course, the sharp increase in the quantity of apprentices is important, but alone it is not enough; despite unemployment falling, we still, shockingly, find both youth unemployment and skills shortages together in many towns in Britain. That points to a skills system that for too long has failed. For too long, the Government directed centrally the training that should be provided, at what level and where. The result was too much poor-quality training in skills employers did not need, and not enough high-quality training in skills employers do need.
The lodestars in reforming the apprenticeship system will be rigour and responsiveness: rigour to stretch, challenge and raise the expectations of apprentices and responsiveness to the needs of employers, public or private, large or small. The Richard review, which we published in the autumn, sets out a clear and specific guide to delivering those reforms, and we shall publish our formal response shortly.
What of Labour’s response today? I certainly welcome the Opposition’s general support for apprenticeships. I welcome their specific support for more employer ownership of skills, which has support across the spectrum, from trade unions, employers and the third sector alike. However, I am disappointed by the rather negative and carping tone that we heard from the hon. Member for Blackpool South. I turn to some of his specific points.
Michael Fallon
Others need to get into the debate.
The hon. Member for Blackpool South referred to an article written by the Leader of the Opposition. I grant that it was an unusual article; it actually set out some policies—on apprenticeships. I read it to find out exactly what was there. The first policy was to introduce a national application system for apprenticeships, rather like UCAS for universities. That is a good idea. It is such a good idea that we have already brought it in and linked it to UCAS. It is called the apprenticeship vacancy service; it is run by the National Apprenticeship Service and it was used by more than 1 million applicants last year—evidently none of them from the Labour party research department.
Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Mr Stuart
The hon. Gentleman is clearly wrong. My right hon. Friend is prepared to give way and I congratulate him. He may not know that my constituency has the highest number of adult apprenticeship starts, and overall has one of the highest numbers in the country. I congratulate him and his colleagues on increasing the number of apprenticeships and ensuring quality. Does he share my surprise that the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) does not mention the tripling of apprenticeships that has occurred in his constituency since Labour left power?
Michael Fallon
My hon. Friend does the House a service by drawing attention to that rather revealing statistic.
I turn to the second policy we discovered in the Labour leader’s article. He said:
“Let’s respond to employers who say they can’t hire young people with the right skills, and put them in charge of how training money is spent.”
That is a good idea, but the Prime Minister launched the employer ownership pilot in November 2011. There are now some 26 of those pilot schemes. Only this morning another one was launched, for digital marketing. The support of the Opposition—a bit late—is very welcome.
Thirdly, let us turn to the idea of apprentices in Whitehall. I agree. In 2010, we found hardly any apprentices in Ministers’ offices. There are now 1,800 across Whitehall. We announced a fast-stream apprentice scheme that will take 500 apprentices—the same number as the graduate fast stream. Other of the Leader of the Opposition’s colleagues mentioned the number of apprentices in my Department. They were wrong; there are 79 apprentices in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and its Executive agencies, hired despite the broader hiring freeze. [Interruption.] Other than apprentices, the Department employs no one at all aged under 19.
Fourthly, we come to the policy on procurement. The Opposition say we should put apprentices into the procurement contracts for High Speed 2. Of course, HS2 has yet to go through the House so its contracts are yet to be signed, but the Department for Transport has already made it clear that it will ensure that any procurement for the construction of HS2 meets our wider Government commitments to deliver apprenticeships and training. In the case of Crossrail, the largest construction project in Europe, the contracts signed by this Government require apprentices. I think we now know where the Opposition got the idea for all these Labour policies—they looked up what we are doing and they are playing catch-up.
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
I am sure my right hon. Friend is aware how delighted the parliamentary apprentices are to have been invited to meet the Prime Minister tomorrow to celebrate apprenticeship week. There are a number of apprentices, including Daisy Peck in my office, who is the former head girl of Northampton school for boys—it takes girls in the sixth form—and she is thrilled to be invited by our Prime Minister to celebrate apprenticeship week at No. 10 tomorrow morning.
Michael Fallon
I am delighted to hear that. I understand that the apprentices will also attend Prime Minister’s Question Time tomorrow, so we must all be on our best behaviour.
Michael Fallon
No. The hon. Gentleman has had four—or is it five—goes.
On the motion, we are clear that we support the principle of apprenticeships within procurement, where they deliver value for money, and we are delivering apprenticeships within procurement, but I am sorry to point out that there is a problem with the Opposition motion. First, it requires the Government to put apprenticeship contracts into all public sector contracts. That would mean all local government contracts and all devolved Government contracts, and I am not sure that the hon. Member for Blackpool South or the Opposition intended that. In addition, the motion makes no mention of value for money. For Government Members value for money in procurement is essential. Of course the evidence shows that apprenticeships normally drive up value for money, but the motion would be a rather heavy-handed approach.
I ask the Opposition, as we jointly celebrate apprenticeship week, to accept the reassurances that we have given about the importance of procurement in national contracts, to understand that their motion is technically defective, not to push it to a vote, and instead to support the Government in their drive to increase apprenticeship numbers.
I urge the whole House to get behind the wider reforms that we are putting in place for apprenticeships. Following the Richard review, which was widely welcomed, we are setting out those reform plans so that as well as the welcome increase in quantity, we increase the quality, putting employers at the heart of apprenticeships and making the system more rigorous and more responsive to skills needs. We have published regulations to increase the level to which apprenticeships can be studied, introducing for the first time apprenticeships that can lead to the same exams to qualify as a solicitor, accountant or insurance professional. By putting employers in the driving seat, we are reshaping apprenticeships to fit the modern economy—a highly skilled, highly motivated work force where each and every one can aspire to fulfil their potential. That is what our reforms will do, and I commend apprenticeships to the House.
Several hon. Members