Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what academic research he has commissioned on the expected behavioural response of employers to the introduction of the apprenticeship levy.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills have commissioned academics at The Institute of Employment Research and IFF Research to undertake detailed research into employers’ response to the apprenticeship levy. We expect to be able to publish this in late summer 2016.

Additionally we are in the process of commissioning further independent work in this area.