Skills and Training Facilities
Debate between Stephen McPartland and Eric Ollerenshaw(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Stephen McPartland
I completely agree. The juxtaposition between employers and education is important. Top-down centralised targets do not work, because places such as High Peak, Stevenage and Carlisle have different employment needs. There is a need for local skills and training facilities that can deliver to those areas.
People sometimes say that what we are talking about is not rocket science; well, in Stevenage it actually is—we have apprentice rocket scientists. Why have we been so lucky in Stevenage? The simple answer is that we have always had a great respect for apprentices in particular, and I have managed to persuade many SMEs that taking on an apprentice is a way of investing in their work force and future turnover. I will visit any company I can that takes on an apprentice, and meet them personally. Perhaps if I did not make those visits we would already have reached my target of 1,000 apprenticeship starts for this year—that is something for me to think about.
I have also worked with a local bank, which was close to agreeing to complete any apprenticeship-based paperwork for its SME business customers that took on a new apprentice. Unfortunately the individual that I was working with has moved on, so I need to revisit the matter and try to rebuild the approach. That would have released a whole range of new, smaller companies that are concerned about paperwork to move forward and employ an apprentice. The Minister has simplified the system, but fear of paperwork remains a barrier for many SMEs. I urge him to continue to reduce it as much as possible.
Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate on small towns and cities. Does he think that one of the psychological barriers in small towns and cities is that they rarely rate a mention? In the north-west, Lancaster and Fleetwood are rarely mentioned in articles and speeches. It is always Manchester, usually meaning Greater Manchester, and Liverpool, usually meaning Greater Merseyside, that are referred to.