Apprenticeships

Debate between Michael Fallon and Graham Stuart

Tuesday 12th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[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?

[Michael Fallon]

indicated assent.

[Mr Sheerman]

The Minister said he would not give way to anyone.

[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.