Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Boles and David Morris

Monday 19th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[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.