Apprenticeships
Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Lord Cormack
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Viscount Younger of Leckie) (Con)
My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to set out what the Government are doing for apprenticeships and to ensure that our craft industries remain an important part of our national fabric. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Cormack for tabling this debate, and to noble Lords who have made contributions. I applaud my noble friend’s commitment and passion as patron of the Heritage Crafts Association and as chairman of the William Morris Craft Fellowship.
Before I continue, I should like to express my great admiration for the energy and stamina of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, this afternoon—or it may have been all day. “Five in a row” has a certain ring to it.
Britain leads the world in many creative industries and key skills. The crafts are something that we can be proud of, and I agree that it is important to keep these skills alive, generating employment and contributing to the economy. My noble friend Lord Cormack, in highlighting certain endangered skills, makes a pertinent point about skills developed and honed over many years that need to be passed down to the next generation. This is because we need to safeguard our national heritage. This country’s many castles, churches, cathedrals and museums—not to mention listed buildings—form an integral part of the fabric of Britain. For example, so many gargoyles and friezes eroded by pollution need to be repaired and maintained. Noble Lords will be aware that stonemason apprentices have been working here in this magnificent building doing stone and encaustic tile conservation work.
It is important that young people are inspired in the heritage crafts. It should be an easy sell to persuade people to want to work on maintaining historic and beautiful buildings. We need to promote such careers—and they are careers—as valuable, honourable and rewarding, as my noble friends Lord Cormack and Lord Addington, and the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, correctly mentioned. We strongly believe that craft-sector employers have a responsibility to inspire and engage with young people by getting involved with schools and local training providers. The noble Lord, Lord Young, mentioned the importance of collaboration in this respect.
The National Careers Service provides information and advice on careers in arts, crafts and design. This includes details of jobs, careers, the skills and qualifications needed and a link to representative bodies. It is important that we continue to expand engagement between employers and the National Careers Service to ensure that our young people get the information they need on academic and vocational paths. My noble friend Lord Addington emphasised the importance of this in his passionate speech.
We know that apprenticeships are important: they give people of all ages the chance to develop the practical skills and experience that employers want. Under this Government there are more people in apprenticeships in this country, working for more employers and in more sectors than ever before and covering the whole economy. In fact, as the Committee may be aware, the number of apprenticeships started each year has doubled since 2009-10. A record 1.8 million people started an apprenticeship during this Parliament, as published today. We are on track to meet our ambition of 2 million new apprenticeships by the end of this Parliament, including more young women than ever before.
Reforms are being taken forward by trailblazers, led by employers of all sizes and professional bodies, who are leading the way in developing the new standards for apprenticeships, giving employers more control. We have had a continued focus on apprenticeship quality, insisting that all such jobs are paid, have a minimum duration of a year, including off-the-job training, and meet the needs of employers. The reforms are designed to address exactly the barriers that employers have identified to taking on apprentices. By putting employers in the driving seat on designing the new apprenticeships, skills needs will be addressed. This will make it easier for them to offer more apprenticeships in the future, including through the university technical colleges, thus raising opportunities for, and encouraging greater numbers of, young people to study engineering and science with a practical application. These important points were highlighted by the noble Lords, Lord Ramsbotham, Lord Young and Lord Macdonald.
I am pleased to tell the Committee that representatives from across the craft sector, including the Heritage Crafts Association, mentioned by my noble friend Lord Cormack, are fully engaged with the apprenticeship reforms. Significant progress has already been made by the craft trailblazers, with their standard being submitted for consideration this week. More than 350 craftspeople and stakeholders have provided overwhelming levels of support for the trailblazers, and they have taken an innovative approach when designing their standard. They are developing one overarching standard which, I am pleased to say, is accessible to a variety of different craft disciplines. By taking this approach, it will open up apprenticeship possibilities to non-specified craft disciplines which have previously been excluded from apprenticeships.
A wide range of job roles are covered in the draft standard, including—this is interesting—wood turner, organ builder, thatcher, calligrapher, furniture maker, stonemason, cordwainer, milliner, wheelwright and more. They are such wonderful Hardy-esque descriptions.
We are indebted to Jason Holt, who is chairing the craft trailblazer project and championing the needs of small businesses and their engagement with apprenticeships. My noble friend Lord Cormack emphasised correctly that the craft industry is unique in that the majority of those involved are self-employed or work for micro-businesses. He is of course right that this provides particular challenges. We also know that across the sectors there are too many small businesses not engaged with apprenticeships, a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Young.
That is why we are working diligently with the Federation of Small Businesses and other stakeholders such as the Heritage Crafts Association to ensure that our reforms are small and micro-business friendly. Apprenticeship training agencies and group training agencies can also help small and micro-businesses employ apprentices which, for whatever reason, are unable to commit to employing an apprentice directly.
Putting employers in the driving seat means exactly that. We need more employers to take the lead. I noted the widening of the debate by the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, to the construction and engineering sectors in which certain craft skills are essential. He made some very good points on that front.
We also know that the national skills academy is working with the sector to extend its projects to embrace cultural heritage skills. The Government have also introduced the apprenticeship grant for employers, providing £1,500 payments to encourage and support our smaller employers to take on a young apprentice. The Budget made £170,000 of additional funding available over two years from this year, 2014, in order to extend the grant, which will provide more than 100,000 additional incentive payments that can help exactly the small businesses that are working to keep our heritage craft skills alive. Furthermore, a two-year grant scheme will provide £20 million toward repairs for churches and cathedrals, which have been mentioned today.
I turn to the points raised by my noble friend Lord Addington. Apprenticeships are an excellent opportunity for young people, including those with dyslexia or other disabilities, to demonstrate what they are capable of. In 2012-13, more than 18,630 of those who successfully completed an apprenticeship declared a disability or learning difficulty. I am sure that my noble friend will say that the Government should be doing more, and indeed he makes a good point. The National Institute of Adult Continuing Education has recently launched a toolkit to help more disabled people gain access to apprenticeships.
Noble Lords asked a number of questions, and I will address as many as I can. The noble Lord, Lord Macdonald of Tradeston, raised the issue of public procurement. The Government support the appropriate use of apprenticeships in procurement. The process can sometimes deter small businesses and voluntary and charitable organisations, which is why each contract should be considered on an individual basis. Many public bodies in local government already build skills into their procurement process. For example, HS2 will create up to 2,000 apprenticeships over the lifetime of its construction.
The noble Lord raised the issue of apprentices not being paid the national minimum wage. He will know that I have been up at the Dispatch Box on several occasions to address this important point. To reassure him, HMRC investigates all the complaints that it receives through the pay and work rights helpline, and we have a commitment to ensure that all people, not just apprentices, are paid the minimum wage. Our regular announcements naming and shaming those who are not complying with national minimum wage regulations are proof of that. Sadly, I suspect that there will be more of those to come.
My noble friend Lord Addington asked how we better educate the population, both young and old, about the opportunities available through apprenticeships. The National Careers Service provides advice and guidance to young people and adults online, by telephone helpline and face to face in the community. It can handle 1 million helpline calls from adults and 370,000 from young people, and there are 20 million hits on its website each year. In fact, it gives 700,000 people face-to-face advice each year, which I hope will be some answer to his question.
I want to pick up a point that my noble friend Lord Cormack and the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, made about the City livery companies. It is excellent that they have taken such a lead in promoting apprenticeships. In terms of the buying-in of apprenticeships, I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, who made the point that the more that they can do to help, the better, because they are the guardians of some of the best traditional skills that we have in this particular country.
I might need to address separately by letter the question from the noble Lord, Lord Young, about administration and the lack of employers willing to take on apprenticeships. His question, “How do we encourage smaller employers to do so?”, is a very pertinent point. The Government have made it clear that we want good quality apprenticeship training agencies to be able to continue to operate once the apprenticeship funding reforms have been introduced. We are also encouraging more and better quality group training agencies.
This welcome debate has allowed me to set out the Government’s continued commitment to apprenticeships and the whole range of activity that is supporting our craft industries.
Lord Cormack
Could my noble friend, for whose reply I am grateful, clarify one point for me? Will those individual crafts men and women, such as those who belong to the Heritage Crafts Association, be able to benefit from funds from an apprentice agency or some other source so that they can afford to take on apprentices, and therefore their crafts will continue into the future? My noble friend referred to this in a way that seemed to give me that assurance, but I would be most grateful if he would clarify that.
Viscount Younger of Leckie
My noble friend makes a good point. As it is a very specific question, I will write to him with the particular openings and opportunities for funding in that area.
Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill
Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Lord Cormack
Viscount Younger of Leckie
I think I can best reply by saying that I shall stick to my previous remark, which is that talks are happening at the moment to work out a way forward. We need to come back on that particular question when we can.
Lord Cormack
My Lords, is it within the power of the devolved Scottish Government to ignore this or is it not?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
As I say, talks are ongoing, so it is best if I respond to noble Lords on the matter raised initially by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes.
The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, asked whether arbitration would be free to use for complainants. I can confirm that the charter provides that a self-regulator must provide an arbitration process that is free to use for complainants. The noble Lord also asked whether freedom of information would apply. Shortly we will debate an amendment on freedom of information, but the Government do not intend to extend the Freedom of Information Act to the regulatory body or, indeed, the recognition body.
Viscount Younger of Leckie
I admit that the answer is not here, but I have pledged to write to noble Lords. We should remember that this debate has arisen out of an amendment to the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill but, having said that, I am happy to answer questions raised today about this very important matter.
Lord Cormack
My Lords, I appreciate that it is difficult for my noble friend but the House is being invited to approve this amendment this evening, and therefore letters that arrive subsequent to any vote can have no effect. This Parliament can bind this Parliament; we all understand that. If there is to be any change, it must be made by a two-thirds majority in both Houses, but after 2015 there will be another Parliament. We really must have an absolute assurance from the Law Officers that they are confident that this will hold. I do not believe it will.