Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if the Government will reconsider including food and drink qualifications in the Lifetime Skills Guarantee.

Through the free courses for jobs offer, we are making courses available that address skills needs in the economy, offer good wage outcomes, and empower adults with the tools they need to secure a better job.

We have identified hundreds of courses that can give adults the skills they need in the labour market. These qualifications include those that can support employers regardless of their sector, including those in the food and drink industry, with courses in business, accountancy, engineering, marketing and a variety of digital qualifications. We are keeping the list of qualifications and the sector subject areas in scope under review and will consider requests for including courses that meet the published criteria. We have already added more qualifications to the original list. Those qualifications met all the criteria published on gov.uk.

Qualifications not included in this offer will still be eligible for Advanced Learner Loans (ALL). ALL are income contingent loans that provide extensive coverage of regulated qualifications from level 3 to level 6, helping to meet the up-front tuition fees. In the 2019/20 academic year there were applications to study at nearly 450 training providers, and over 3000 qualifications are currently in scope.

In addition to this, there a variety of high quality apprenticeship standards in food and drink manufacturing available for employers to use. They include, but are not limited to, food and drink advanced engineer, baker, and senior culinary chef.