Apprenticeships

Debate between Stephen Doughty and Gordon Marsden

Tuesday 12th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Marsden]

I will indeed support what my hon. Friend has said, and would add that Willmott Dixon, among other companies, has had some interesting things to say about the role that social value can play in apprenticeships and procurement.

Addressing not just fall-out at post-24, but the ability to fall in at 16 to 18 and 19 to 24 should be a crucial part of any Government apprenticeships strategy. That means exposing them to the world of work and work experience at a much earlier age; giving space and dedicated funding in the curriculum for independent, face-to-face career guidance on apprenticeships; and making space for vital work-related learning skills, as the Federation of Small Businesses said in its publication, “The Apprenticeship Journey”.

The Prime Minister said yesterday in Buckinghamshire that he wanted to make apprenticeships a first-choice career move, so perhaps he could have a word with the Secretary of State for Education, who appropriately is in his place, but who has studiously ignored and devalued the arguments for vocational careers advice made by business groups and, indeed, by his own small and medium-sized enterprises apprenticeships adviser, Jason Holt, in his report last August.

No wonder businesses are dismayed. When the Government removed compulsory work-related learning from the key stage 4 curriculum in 2012, the FSB said:

“We remain deeply concerned that without it many schools may fail to teach these vital skills.”

The Prime Minister also said yesterday rather airily that he wanted Britain to be more like Germany in its attitude to apprenticeships, so perhaps he, too, should listen to Ofsted’s chief inspector, Sir Michael Wilshaw, who has come back from looking at Germany’s apprenticeships system and told FE Week this week that Germany’s “very effective” apprenticeships system is supported

“with a greater focus on vocational training”

in schools “earlier on.” If we want the broadest spectrum of young people, including those not in education, employment or training, to be able to take up apprenticeships, we must give them a fair chance to get there. We and others have been urging for months the need for a proper pre-training route.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making a strong speech. Perhaps the Prime Minister could take some lessons from Wales. I am proud to have ACT Training in my constituency, which is one of Wales’s largest apprenticeship training providers, training 5,000 apprentices last year, with a 90% completion rate. Will he join me in welcoming the announcement this afternoon by the Deputy Minister for Skills in the Welsh Labour Government? He has announced an additional £22 million of support over the next two years for apprenticeships, which is quite a contrast to the approach of the Government in this place.

[Mr Marsden]

That support is entirely welcome. Indeed, there might be more occasions when the current Government should look at examples from the devolved nations.

Ever since the Government admitted the need to guarantee that quality apprenticeships would have to be 12 months or longer, we have been pushing these points. That is the only way to ensure that social mobility and apprenticeship expansion can go hand in hand. However, the Government have dithered and dallied, and precious opportunities have been squandered for many young people. The traineeship consultation, which is welcome, was launched only at the beginning of this year, but now the Government have to spell out in detail how they will avoid it becoming a rerun of the youth training scheme of the 1980s, which merely recycled young people off the jobless figures.

The Labour party recognises, therefore, that we need a step change to expand apprenticeship opportunities for young people and to support smaller businesses to take part. That is why, this time last year in Blackpool, I laid out a series of apprenticeship initiatives from our Front-Bench team to do just that. They include Government expansion and encouragement of group training associations to aid smaller businesses and the promotion of best practice in buddying, with larger companies working with smaller ones in their supply chains to create apprenticeships, as well as a larger direct role for business and industry in creating and setting apprenticeship frameworks and direct involvement in careers advice and guidance.