Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Boles Excerpts

Monday 19th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

4. How many apprentices aged 16 to 18 are paid the apprentice minimum wage.

[The Minister for Skills and Equalities (Nick Boles)]

The 2014 apprenticeship pay survey found that 76% of 16 to 18-year-old apprentices were paid at or above the minimum amount. On average, they were paid a basic hourly rate of £4.34.

[Diana Johnson]

Non-compliance with apprenticeship minimum wage is highest in the sectors that young women traditionally go into, such as hairdressing and child care. I think that with hairdressing a third do not receive the minimum wage and with child care it is a quarter. There are obviously issues there around gender inequality as well as poverty pay, so will the Minister tell us what he is going to do about them?

[Nick Boles]

The hon. Lady is quite right to say that it is perhaps especially unacceptable that this should impact on women in particular, although it is always unacceptable for an employer not to pay the national minimum wage. That is why we have increased the Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs enforcement budget from £8 million in 2013-14 to £9 million this year and to £12 million next year. In 2013, we introduced the naming and shaming of those companies found not to pay the minimum wage. We repeated that last week and have now named and shamed 92 employers. We will continue to do that and I will make sure that we look particularly at cases where young women are affected.

[Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

The card is in the post, Mr Speaker.

The number of people taking up apprenticeships in Basingstoke has doubled under this Government. Fujitsu is guaranteeing a permanent job to all apprentices who complete their training. Of course bad employers should be taken to task, but given that the Government have got this in hand, does the Minister share my concern that the Opposition risk casting apprenticeships in a bad light at a time when we should be talking them up as an option for young people in school?

[Nick Boles]

I agree with my right hon. Friend, particularly about the fantastic work of Fujitsu, which is one of the best apprentice employers in the country, and I am delighted about that as it is to the benefit of her constituents. She is absolutely right to say that we should all be selling the advantages of apprenticeships to young people. Most employers of apprentices pay dramatically more than the minimum wage—and quite right, too, because they value young people and their efforts—but this Government will always bear down on those who fail in their responsibilities.

[Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)]

As the Minister saw for himself at Abingdon and Witney college last week, we have seen a superb 63% increase in apprenticeships in my constituency. In fact, local employers and apprentices told us that the main barrier to an even better performance going forward was the historical local bias towards university education. What work is the Minister doing with schools to ensure that apprenticeships are seen as a good career option?

[Nick Boles]

I thank my hon. Friend for organising this visit, which was fascinating and very encouraging. Perhaps we all understand why there might be a bias in favour of university in the city of Oxford, but nevertheless a huge number of young people in my hon. Friend’s constituency decide, quite rightly, that they can benefit even more from an apprenticeship. We are investing in a marketing campaign to ensure that their teachers and parents have the same understanding of the value of an apprenticeship as many enlightened young people do themselves.

[Rosie Cooper (West Lancashire) (Lab)]

5. Whether her Department monitors local education authorities’ adherence to its statutory guidance on school organisation.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)]

16. What steps she is taking to improve the status of vocational education.

[The Minister for Skills and Equalities (Nick Boles)]

We have removed thousands of low-quality qualifications from performance league tables, introduced the requirement to carry on studying English and maths for young people who have not yet achieved Cs at GCSE and invested in 2 million high-quality apprenticeships since 2010.

[David Morris]

Will the Minister join me in praising the fact that last month we celebrated having more than 2 million apprentices? What else are the Government doing to promote apprenticeships in areas such as mine?

[Nick Boles]

I had the great pleasure of meeting the 2 millionth apprentice, a young woman working in an extraordinary business whose work I could not understand because it was so complicated. She is doing something very clever in engineering near Oxford in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood). We are supporting smaller employers who create apprenticeships with a grant worth £1,500 and we are working closely with the fantastic apprenticeship ambassador network, led by David Meller and championed in this House by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones) and the hon. Member for Burnley (Gordon Birtwistle)—[Interruption.] Not that David Mellor.

[Mr Speaker]

That is a great relief to all of us to learn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

T2. More than 10,000 people have now signed an e-petition urging the Government to introduce a VAT refund scheme for sixth-form colleges. Does the Minister now accept that it is time to drop this learning tax on sixth-form colleges, which does not have to be paid by schools, academies and free schools?

[The Minister for Skills and Equalities (Nick Boles)]

I am aware of this long-standing issue, which the last Government also failed to correct. One of the things that I am looking into is the possibility of enabling sixth-form colleges to change their status if they are willing to link up with other schools. But that is something that has to be brought forward by sixth-form colleges themselves, and it is still subject to discussions with the Treasury, which is always pretty fierce on these matters. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Mr Campbell, calm yourself. All that hot curry in the Kennington Tandoori is making you fierier than ever. I have never known anything like it.