Skills and Labour Shortages

Debate between Theresa Villiers and Toby Perkins

Thursday 12th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Theresa Villiers]

I certainly agree that investing in adult education, apprenticeships and skills is crucial for giving people opportunities in life and the skills that they need. That is why I welcome the huge amount of work that the Government have done on this issue. Indeed, the Prime Minister identified that as a key priority for him.

Apprenticeships, skills and adult education are crucial in giving people the chance to succeed in life, whatever their background. They can be an engine of social mobility and social justice. Apprenticeships in the science and technology field can strengthen the capacity of our workforce to tackle the two huge environmental challenges we face: climate change and nature recovery. For those three reasons alone, I am a big enthusiast for apprenticeships. I have met a number of people whose lives have been transformed for the better because of them.

[Mr Perkins]

I absolutely share the right hon. Lady’s enthusiasm for apprenticeships, so I suspect she will be as concerned as I am that, since the introduction of the apprenticeship levy, the number of apprenticeships has fallen, and the number of apprentices in small and medium-sized enterprises has fallen massively. Companies that do not pay the apprenticeship levy are much less likely to do apprenticeships. Does she agree with me and the Labour party that we need to make the apprenticeship levy more flexible, and bring more small businesses under that regime?

[Theresa Villiers]

There is scope to review the apprenticeship levy and make it more flexible; I will come on to that. We also have to recognise the success in recent years in delivering apprenticeships; there have been around 5.2 million since the Conservatives returned to office in 2010. Yes, there has been a slight fall since the covid pandemic, which we need to address. I will come on to that later.

I commend Middlesex University, which is local to my constituency, for its work on degree apprenticeships. They deliver a great combination of academic and in-work learning, without creating the burden of debt that comes with a more traditional degree. It was great to meet young people in the university’s apprenticeship programme who are training for roles in the NHS at Barnet Hospital. Those dedicated apprentices show that skilling up people already working in the NHS can help to address labour shortages in healthcare, which we urgently need to tackle if we are to expand the NHS’s capacity for dealing with rising healthcare need.

I also praise the work of the BioIndustry Association. Last year, I met the association, along with some of its young people who are undertaking apprenticeships in the biotech and life sciences sector, to discuss these important matters. That part of our economy is truly world beating, as the inspirational work on delivering a vaccine during the covid pandemic showed. We need to ensure that the life sciences sector has a great pool of talent from which to recruit if it is to live up to its potential to deliver the new treatments, vaccinations and diagnostics that could transform healthcare in years to come, and if it is to provide hope for people suffering from devastating conditions such as cancer and dementia.

In his winding-up speech, I want the Minister to consider how we can get more people into apprenticeships. When it comes to tech sectors such as life sciences, co-ordination between the Government’s research and development and skills programmes can be invaluable. For example, the network of catapult centres created by the Government to encourage cutting-edge science and innovation could play a positive role in supporting small businesses in handling the apprenticeship process. That is illustrated by the cell and gene therapy catapult’s development of ATAC—the Advanced Therapies Apprenticeship Community. That engaged over 48 companies in using apprenticeships to attract, train and retain talent. Over half of the companies were small or medium-sized enterprises at the time of first recruitment.

Like the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins), I ask the Minister to consider the wider point of how we can make it easier for small businesses, such as that owned by my constituent, to employ and train apprentices. I am the vice-chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on apprenticeships, which considered that issue in a report published last July.