Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Graham Excerpts

Thursday 6th September 2012 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

1. What assessment he has made of the level of satisfaction of participants and businesses with the apprenticeship system.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

6. What assessment he has made of the level of satisfaction of participants and businesses with the apprenticeship system.

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)]

The Department recently completed the biggest ever survey of apprentices and their employers, which revealed the best ever satisfaction rates. Overall, almost 90% of apprentices were satisfied with their training. Employer satisfaction is also high: 88% are satisfied with the relevance of their training, and 80% remain committed to offering places.

[Richard Graham]

I welcome the evidence from the Holt review that we need to do more to make apprenticeships accessible to small and medium-sized enterprises. I know from my own apprentices’ business and administration non-vocational qualifications that they are not all user-friendly to the smallest businesses, which are the driver of future jobs. Does the Secretary of State agree that employers in, for example, the Federation of Small Businesses should have more say in the content of courses and in the setting of a reassuring series of national standards?

[Vince Cable]

I do agree, but let me preface my remarks by saying what a success story the apprenticeship programme is. Not only has there been a big increase in scale—more than 60% over the last two years—but there is a very high satisfaction rate. Let me also take this opportunity to pay tribute to the work of the former Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning, the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes)—who has now moved on to higher things—and to welcome his excellent replacement, who is, indeed, part of an excellent BIS team.

The Holt study, which the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) mentioned, does acknowledge that there are barriers to SMEs’ access to the apprenticeship programme. We are trying to address them, most notably by channelling resources through employers rather than trainers: that will increasingly be the emphasis of the programme.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vince Cable]

The hon. Gentleman is being a little churlish in not even acknowledging that on Sunday, the Chancellor made it clear that we wished to proceed with a business bank. We are discussing the range of its activities and the resources that will be available. The hon. Gentleman knows well that growth prospects in all European countries are extremely depressed at the moment, not only in the UK.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

T4. As secretary of the all-party group for post offices, I strongly support the Government’s commitment to ensuring that there are no further post office closures, as well as the ambition to develop post offices to carry out more front-office Government services. I am, however, slightly concerned about the pace of progress in making new services available through post offices, and sub-postmasters in Gloucester are concerned about the possibility of losing the DVLA contract. I appreciate that the Minister has only just arrived in her post, but will she give that issue priority in the future?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Jo Swinson)]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments; he is a strong campaigner for post offices which we all recognise lie at the heart of many of our communities. He asked me to comment on a live procurement contract, which I hope he will understand I cannot do. There are, however, some reasons to be cheerful. Over the past year, the Government’s services revenue for Post Office Ltd increased for the first time in 10 years, reversing the trend of decline that we saw under the previous Government.