Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment has she made of the impact of the apprenticeship levy on the number of people starting an apprenticeship starts since 2018.

Since 2017/18 there has been over 1.7 million apprenticeship starts. An annual breakdown is provided in the table below:

It is encouraging to see last year’s strong recovery in apprenticeship starts, supported by incentive payments for employers and training flexibilities, which gave employers confidence to offer new apprenticeships and to deliver them in the way that works best for their business.

The department has created flexible training models, such as flexi-job and accelerated apprenticeships, to make apprenticeships accessible for all sectors. We have also developed ‘career starter’ standards to attract more young people to apprenticeships. The department is supporting employers to make greater use of their levy funds and have improved the transfer system to make it easier to find employers who wish to take on apprentices with transferred funds.

The department is increasing apprenticeship funding to £2.7 billion by the 2024/25 financial year to support more employers and apprentices to benefit from high-quality apprenticeship training.