Apprenticeships

Roberta Blackman-Woods Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nick Boles]

I am delighted to do that, not least because the employers that my hon. Friend has mentioned demonstrate that apprenticeships are no longer narrowly confined to the traditional industries of construction or engineering. People can be apprentice lawyers, apprentice accountants or apprentice digital creators. Some day, they will probably even be able to be apprentice politicians.

[Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

The Minister will know that 96% of apprenticeships are delivered at levels 2 and 3. Clearly it is very good that young people and others are getting those qualifications, but is he confident that enough apprenticeship opportunities exist at level 4 and above, to provide clear apprenticeship progression routes for the young people who want them?

Also, I want briefly to point out to the Minister, whom I have some time for, that a lot of us on this side of the Chamber—not least my hon. Friends the Members for Blackpool South (Mr Marsden) and for Hartlepool (Mr Wright), who is now the Chair of the Select Committee—worked very hard under the previous Labour Government to rescue apprenticeships from oblivion. We created some very good quality apprenticeships, which the Minister can now build on, so perhaps it would be better not to make this a party political issue.

[Nick Boles]

Funnily enough, I was an apprentice politician to the hon. Lady when she was the Planning Minister and I was shadowing her. I learned a great deal in the process. She is right to say that there are currently too few higher and degree apprenticeships; we would like to see many more of them. We are making reasonably good progress, however. There were 19,800 starts on higher apprenticeships in 2014-15, which was 115% up on the previous year. Degree apprenticeships are a relatively new concept, but we are making progress and more than 1,000 people have now started such apprenticeships. We have much further to go, and there will always be more level 2 and 3 apprenticeships, but we want everyone who is doing those apprenticeships to be able to look up and see the higher and degree apprenticeships that they could move on to. I am happy to pay tribute to the hon. Lady’s role, and that of the Chairman of the Select Committee and the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Mr Marsden) in reviving the idea and the practice of apprenticeships.