Manufacturing Skills
Debate between Saqib Bhatti and Brian Leishman(2 days, 11 hours ago)
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Saqib Bhatti
I reject the framing of the question. [Laughter.] No one finds youth unemployment funny. Many business owners talk to me about what happens when a young apprentice is interviewed. They say that if they have a 25-year-old with experience versus an 18-year-old with no experience, that hinders the prospects of hiring them. That is the reality. I am sure the hon. Gentleman is a conscientious MP, so I encourage him to pose that question to his small business owners in the way I framed it.
Saqib Bhatti
No, I am going to carry on. When met with reality, the Government’s plans in this space fall far too short. The Government have made lots of noise about recruiting targets. I just noticed that the Government announced 40,000 new construction placements every single year. Will the Minister confirm whether that is the same or a different version of the announcement made in a Government press release in August 2025, which mentioned
“40,000 future builders, bricklayers, electricians, carpenters and plumbers”?
Government by press release is one thing but recycling old press releases is something else. Those apprentices deserve better.
There has also been no mention of the impact of the Government’s fiscal policies. Just as we were having this debate, I saw a headline saying job vacancies are at their lowest in 12 years. There are 176,000 fewer jobs now than when Labour took office.
Members have mentioned the Education Secretary’s ambition to close off academic options and offer more vocational options for the 14-to-16 age group. I am deeply sceptical of that policy, and the Opposition are calling for an evidence-based approach. When a previous Labour Government introduced similar reforms, fewer children from poorer backgrounds ended up going into academic subjects. They were funnelled into vocational work. We believe that plenty of people who would have been able to get into higher-quality jobs were funnelled off at a lower age, so we are deeply sceptical. The policy announcement is welcome, but we are yet to see significant detail. Many of the headteachers I spoke to last week asked how their teachers will be trained to deliver vocational subjects and where the funding will come from.
We are incredibly proud of the reforms instituted by the previous Conservative Government, which have meant that England’s education delivery is among the best and most resilient in the world, according to the programme for international student assessment rankings. When I meet people from the advanced manufacturing sector, they laud the fact that a knowledge-rich curriculum has helped young people to gain critical and analytical skills, including in numeracy. We are really worried that some of the Education Secretary’s announcements will undermine opportunities for young people.
The criticism comes not just from the Opposition. Jon White, the chief financial officer at building materials firm Huws Gray, has said that employers are struggling with a lack of incentives to hire younger people. He pointed to the Government’s narrowing of the gap in respect of the national minimum wage, which I have alluded to, and said that they should change the rules in respect of how employers can spend the apprenticeship levy. I hope the Minister can shed a bit of light on some of the questions around the apprenticeship levy.
Making it easier for employers to hire young people is really important, which is why we have pledged to halve employer national insurance for young people aged 21 to 24, to help them get to into work. We have also offered more incentives to small businesses to take on young people. Small businesses are often lauded as the lifeblood of the UK economy and the high street, and they, not big businesses, are the greatest employers of young people across the country. We believe our approach will free up the business sector and manufacturing to employ more young people; I would welcome the Minister’s response.