Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to encourage employers in the (a) construction and (b) manufacturing sectors to offer apprenticeships, particularly to those aged under 25 years old.

Apprenticeships provide people with the opportunity to earn and learn the skills needed to start an exciting career in the construction and manufacturing industries. Employers in the construction, engineering and manufacturing sectors have developed over 230 high-quality apprenticeship standards in their industries. These range from level 2 to level 7 in occupations such as Stonemason, Town Planning and Process Automation Engineer.

In the 2020/21 academic year there were 20,000 apprenticeship starts in the Construction, Planning and the Built Environment sector subject area, and 39,500 starts in Engineering and Manufacturing Technologies.

The department is making apprenticeships more flexible so that they better meet the needs of employers in all sectors, including construction and manufacturing. This is so more employers and individuals can benefit from the high-quality training apprenticeships.

The department is supporting employers to offer more apprenticeships to young people in the construction sector where flexible working practices are commonplace, including short periods of project-based employment. The department is encouraging the use of more flexible training models, front-loaded training and flexi-job apprenticeships to ensure apprentices are ready to work on-site and can benefit from high-quality long-term training that an apprenticeship provides.

Employers can continue to benefit from the £3,000 incentive payment for hiring new apprentices until January 2022. Over 160,000 incentive payments have been claimed by employers so far, as of 22 December 2021, 78% of claims were for apprentices under 25.

The department continues to provide £1,000 to both employers and training providers when they take on apprentices aged between 16 and 18 years old, or 19-to-24-year-old apprentices who either have an education, health and care plan.