Richard Graham
Main Page: Richard Graham (Conservative - Gloucester)Department Debates - View all Richard Graham's debates with the Department for Education
(9 years, 10 months ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. Sit down please, Mr Graham. This is not the opportunity to make three quick points—it is an intervention. [Interruption.] No, I am going to be really strict on this. You wish to speak in this debate as well, and I am doing my best to protect time for Back Benchers. The convention of an intervention is: one point relevant to the point being made. So not three points, but one, thank you.
Richard Graham
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. My one point is simply to ask the shadow Business Secretary whether he has considered what the impact of 2 million apprentices is on the wages of the lower earners, and whether it is not natural that a substantial increase in the number of apprenticeships will lead to more people not earning quite as much as they will in the future when they are better trained.
Vince Cable
I hope that is a clarification that level 2 will not be removed from the hon. Gentleman’s definition of an apprenticeship, should he find himself in government. I hope that the Deputy Prime Minister is not right that this is some kind of ploy to reduce the numbers and save money.
Richard Graham
My right hon. Friend makes an extremely valid point. It is quite extraordinary that the shadow Secretary of State has not read his own motion, which states very clearly
“so that all apprenticeships are at least level three”.
What is the role for level 2? My right hon. Friend is right to question that.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
It falls on me to be tail-end Charlie in this debate on which so much consensus could and should have been reached, as the hon. Member for West Bromwich West (Mr Bailey) pointed out. We all, across the House, share enthusiasm for apprenticeships: their improvement, their widening and their breadth. Unfortunately, today that opportunity was lost in what was, frankly, a disgraceful speech by the shadow Business Secretary. His dire, tribal attempt to rubbish this Government’s—and, above all, the country’s —remarkable achievements in growing apprenticeships and shrinking youth unemployment led to a string of inaccurate and, frankly, almost offensive claims. Let me try to deal, very briefly, with some of them.
The shadow Business Secretary said that the numbers of young apprenticeships were down. The Secretary of State pointed out that they are slightly down for 19 to 24-year-olds in 2013-14. In Gloucester, however, they are still more than 80% higher than the comparable figure when the previous Government were in power, and were more than double that figure in 2012-13. Overall, apprenticeships for 19 to 24-year-olds in Gloucester are at 1,730 in the past three years, compared with 740 in the last three years of the Labour Government. The figures, however one tries to twist them, are remarkable.
The shadow Business Secretary said that many of the apprenticeships were not worth the paper they are written on. How insulting to the 5,000 new apprentices in Gloucester. He said, and it is in the motion, that level 2 apprenticeships are not worth anything at all. Let me tell the House that that is completely wrong. The evidence shows that many apprentices do a level 2 apprenticeship—for example, in business administration—for a year and then go on to do a level 3 apprenticeship in the second year. I know this to be true as the second MP to hire his own apprentice. The shadow Secretary of State admitted that he himself does not have an apprentice and I do not believe that any others on the Opposition Front Bench do. I am happy to take an intervention. [Interruption.] The shadow Minister, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) is saying that he does have one, which is encouraging, but it is disappointing that the shadow Business Secretary does not and does not have that first-hand experience.
Jake Berry
Very briefly, because I know we are pushed for time. On the point of MPs having apprentices—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. The hon. Gentleman has already made many interventions. I am sorry, but we are at the end of this debate.
Richard Graham
I think my hon. Friend was going to make the point that it is important that we lead by example and employ our own apprentices wherever possible.
The shadow Business Secretary went on to talk, with an element of derision, about the number of apprentices over 60 who have started since this Government came into power. I hope that my older constituents, Age UK and others will have noted that point carefully. In fact, he offended almost everybody I can imagine, including all the businesses, training colleges, councils and the NHS in Gloucester that have taken on apprenticeships in the past five years and have done so much to give the opportunities to young people that all of us across this House surely agree is incredibly important. In a sense, his final words rather summed up his speech. He finished by saying that he will be voting Labour. Well, I am delighted for the Leader of the Opposition that he has the vote of his shadow Business Secretary, but if that is the summary of his party’s strategy, it is pretty disappointing. We heard nothing about the opportunities to widen apprenticeships into more sectors, including nursing; the opportunities from the pilot scheme the Government have run to let employers take control of their training funds; and the ways in which the guilds can offer apprenticeships. There were many things that could and should have been covered today, and it is a great disappointment that they were not. I will certainly not be voting for this motion, but I do agree wholeheartedly with all the Members of this House who support apprenticeships and want to see more of them.