Increasing Employment: Training

Debate between Robin Millar and Guy Opperman

Tuesday 11th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Employment (Guy Opperman)]

Good news today: vacancies are down, employment is up, economic inactivity is down and my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) has brought forward a crucial debate that could not be more timely.

We start from a situation where we have created over 5,450,000 apprenticeships since May 2010. That is an astonishing figure, well over 5 million, and it is something to be celebrated. However, I take the tone of my hon. Friend’s debate to be both a celebration of what the Government have done, rightly lauding our efforts to get more people into employment, a celebration of the apprenticeship levy and the clear successes it has brought to this country, and a desire to do better. That is something that I utterly endorse.

I am fortunate that I am responding for only one Department. I think I would probably need to respond on behalf of the Treasury, the Department for Education, the Department for Business and Trade and various other Departments that my hon. Friend rightly cited, but, bluntly, I am happy to set out the position as best I can. I endorse what she says about the Policy Exchange report, which is eloquent and well-made and makes some very good points. She and I have also spoken in the past to the Chair of the Education Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), who only a couple of months ago brought forward a specific Education Committee report looking at further education and post-16 education, all of which should be noted by the House.

It is unquestionably the case that upskilling our workforce is the most important thing. We need to do that not least because we are trying to reduce unemployment and improve social inclusion, productivity and progression. I made two visits to the beautiful constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Robin Millar) a little while back to see the work that is done by the DWP in his part of the world. I was on the phone to them this afternoon in respect of cases in Ynys Môn and the work that our hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie) is doing to try to deal with the issues in Llangefni. The staff there are fantastically committed to transforming the outcomes that we all hope for.

I was also privileged to visit the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud, to meet Tom Robinson from the business Adaptavate and go around his factory. That was in my former life as a pensions Minister; I then enjoyed a brief 49-day holiday as a Back Bencher before returning in this present role, where I hope I can contribute some further matters.

[Robin Millar]

I simply want to compliment the Minister on his visit to us, for the work that he did there and for his pronunciation of Welsh place names.

[Guy Opperman]

When I had to secure the survival of the Amlwch jobcentre, that was a particular challenge, but my mum is a Llewellyn and grew up in the Tywi valley, so I have some Welsh in me beyond the ability to order two beers in Welsh.

The jobcentre in Stroud does a great job. I will make two points before I get into the nuts and bolts of the submissions from my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud. I am also proud to call my right hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer) and his wife, Felicity, friends. They have very much been abused by others over the last few days. My hon. Friend is right to cite Ronel Lehmann, an old friend of mine who has done great work with Finito and in creating opportunities.

I have over the last few months met the Confederation of British Industry, the Federation of Small Businesses, all the key business organisations, and, most importantly, UKHospitality. We are trying our hardest to drive forward true change to ensure that we get proper job opportunities created to fill the vacancies that clearly exist in the hospitality industry up and down the country. I was privileged to meet all the leading players in the hospitality industry last week, on 4 July. They came to the Department for Work and Pensions, led by our right hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns), who chairs a relevant APPG, to see how we could flex the employment offer there.

I look forward to being before my hon. Friend’s APPG on the future of employability, which I am booked in to do in September—that is in the diary. It is unquestionably the case that although the Government have committed £1.3 billion this year to fund a range of opportunities designed to raise skill levels and, subsequently, social mobility, and that a huge amount of money has been invested in the national skills fund, we are also trying to remove barriers that prevent people from progressing—be it through universal credit or the in-work progression that we know is so vital, or through the utilisation of the apprenticeship levy and the skills that are there.

It is difficult for me, in my humble position as a junior Minister, to articulate that there will be widespread change to the apprenticeship levy, but I believe that we should support the institution that it is, while asking ourselves how we can improve and enhance the offer. My hon. Friend set out a number of particular recommendations, one of which was familiar to me, because I have met Punch Pubs, Greene King, Budweiser, Heineken, Molson—all the big players in hospitality. They all made the simple point that they pay the apprenticeship levy but cannot then transfer that to the individual publicans in their franchised pubs up and down the country—no matter which constituency—so that they can employ an apprentice. That seems to me to be something that the Government could look at to see how they could flex that on an ongoing basis.

My hon. Friend also raised the brilliantly named regional apprenticeship facilitators—the RAF of the modern era—and she made a fair point: every one of us has, in our constituencies up and down the country, a regional schools commissioner who looks after our region and drives forward excellence in education in that way. Why would one not try to facilitate that for apprenticeships?

On the £3,000 incentive, I bow to others who know the particulars in more detail. On the abolishment of the apprenticeship minimum wage and harnessing that to the Treasury-led national minimum wage for their age, that is a matter that I am sure my hon. Friend will take up with the Treasury. What I will do, however, is ask my colleagues at DFE, HMT and the Department for Business and Trade to respond to my hon. Friend’s individual points in writing so that she gets the detailed answers on how she can drive forward ongoing change, particularly in the light of the APPG that she runs with others.

It is fair to say that there is a gap we have to acknowledge between the amount of money raised from the apprenticeship levy and the actual spend. How can this country squeeze that gap to achieve the outcomes we all so willingly seek in our constituencies? I certainly hope that that is one of the major things pressed upon me. The Chair of the Education Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester, feels passionately that there must be enough entry-level apprenticeships on an ongoing basis. Others have also made that point. I have had the opportunity to visit South Essex College with my hon. Friends the Members for Rochford and Southend East (Sir James Duddridge) and for Southend West (Anna Firth) to see the benefits of T-levels, which are transformational, and other countries are copying them. There is no doubt that we should be doing more in that space and have great opportunity to do so.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud that our over-50s offer has to get better. She will know that we have 37 over-50s champions in each region of the country, pioneering and driving forward real change in the attitude of employers and co-workers to older workers—some of us have inexplicably reached the age of 50 and need to ensure a supportive approach to that.

There is no doubt that we need to drive forward the way in which employers look at employment. Why would a particular employer pay somebody to provide a service when the Department for Work and Pensions will provide training for free through a skills bootcamp, a sector-based work academy, returneeships and all manner of other things? We exist up and down the country in over 700 locations, in every constituency. I was honoured to go to the Canvey Island jobcentre recently with the Whip on duty, my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris), and those who work there do a fantastic job of training people up. It is a free service to local employers, and it can be from one week up to 12 weeks. We want more employers to sign up to taking people in this way, and we would like more employers to sign up to T-levels as well. There is no doubt whatsoever that we need to do more in that space.

The childcare reforms that my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud pioneered—I know she has been a frequent visitor to the Chancellor in the previous nine months—have, without a shadow of doubt, done great work to drive forward change and provide opportunity, so that individuals can now go to work and have their childcare supported and paid for by the state. That is certainly making a difference in universal credit.

We continue to work closely across Government and with employers and stakeholders to refine the support on offer and more closely align employment and skills. We need to do that because it supports unemployed people who are looking for work. While the present position is very positive in terms of increasing employment, reducing vacancies and a reducing economic inactivity, we all know that there is more to do, and this is a Government who are passionately committed to ensuring that we solve these problems.

Question put and agreed to.