Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the effect of backfilling costs in the NHS on the NHS' ability to provide affordable apprenticeships programmes for (a) nursing and (b) other careers in healthcare.

The Department for Education operate the apprenticeship levy to support employers across all sectors to undertake training as apprentices. Apprenticeships funding can be used to cover the eligible costs of training and assessment for the apprentice, but it currently does not allow costs of backfill to be met – this falls to National Health Service employers employing apprentices.

We recognise that the nursing apprenticeship requires a high percentage of apprentice time spent in off the job training. Apprenticeships are real jobs with training and employers cover employment costs as they would with any employee, including wages while training.

Apprenticeships continue to play a vital role in delivering the high-quality skills employers need and that will support our economic recovery post COVID-19.