Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he made of the proportion of his Department's overall spending on apprenticeships that supports people aged 18 to 25.

Apprenticeships are available for anyone aged 16 or over, and in the 2020/21 academic year young people under the age of 25 accounted for 50% of apprenticeship starts.

In the 2020-21 financial year total apprenticeships participation spend for apprentices of all ages was £1.8 billion. We have spent £835 million on new and continuing apprentices for people aged between 18 and 25.

These figures include additional payments we make in respect of apprentices aged 18-25, such as English and maths and the payments we make to employers and providers for taking on young apprentices. They do not include spend on incentive payments paid to employers for hiring new apprentices, nor on wider spend which supports the ongoing delivery of the apprenticeship programme.

To support employers to offer new apprenticeship opportunities to young people, we extended the higher incentive payment of £3,000 for every new apprentice hired until 31 January 2022 as part of the government's Plan for Jobs. 127,660 incentive payments have been claimed by employers so far, of which 77% were for those aged under 25 (as of 10 November 2021).

In addition, we 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 or have been in the care of their local authority.

We encourage more young people to consider apprenticeships, by promoting apprenticeships in schools and colleges through our Apprenticeship Support & Knowledge (ASK) programme. This free service provides resources and interventions to help better educate young people about apprenticeships.