Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the amount of existing training activity that companies will be able to re-badge into level 2 apprenticeships in order to comply with new regulations.

It is not the intention of the apprenticeship programme that companies should re-badge existing training to comply with apprenticeship regulations. Apprenticeships are a specific product defined in law. We are introducing new employer-designed standards to improve the quality of the offer and better meet employers’ skill needs, and have committed to all new apprentices being on the new standards by 2020. 253 standards are ready for delivery, and a further 277 are currently in development. Our intention is to maintain and improve apprenticeship quality, and ensure that government funds are spent on approved training to build the knowledge, skills and behaviours to achieve competency in a true occupation.

We have implemented extensive measures underpinned by statutory regulations to safeguard and improve the quality of learning provided through the apprenticeships programme.

We are continuing to focus on the quality of apprenticeships by insisting that all apprenticeships must be real paid jobs; have a minimum duration of 12 months; involve sustained training and acquisition of skills through off-the-job training; and must include English and maths for those who have not previously achieved good GCSEs in those subjects.