Mike Amesbury
Main Page: Mike Amesbury (Labour - Weaver Vale)Department Debates - View all Mike Amesbury's debates with the Department for Education
(4 years, 1 month ago)
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Gillian Keegan
Of course, the workforce in FE colleges are a vital part of delivering the high-quality turnaround we want in our technical education. We are increasing the funding in FE colleges, and we have also increased funding specifically for workforce development. These are independent organisations, of course, so we do not set the pay and salary scales.
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
Apprenticeships are down 46% since the introduction of the levy. What will the Minister do in National Careers Week to turn that around?
Gillian Keegan
Apprenticeships are at the heart of our vision for a world-class technical education system, and we have specifically focused on quality in the past year or so. High-quality starts have increased to 63% from 44% the previous year. Quality is the most important thing, and we are pleased to say that the number of starts is increasing this year.[Official Report, 16 March 2020, Vol. 673, c. 5MC.]