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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to provide financial support to young people in the services sector.

In his Summer Economic Update, my Rt. Hon. Friend Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer announced a £1.6bn plan to support jobs focussing on skills and young people whose employment prospects are expected to be disproportionately affected by the economic fallout of Coronavirus.

We have aligned our skills and training offers to priority areas for economic recovery, including the services sector, and we are investing over £500m in a package of support to ensure young people have the skills and training to go on to high quality, secure and fulfilling employment. This includes:

• A new payment to support organisations that take on new apprentices between 1 August 2020 and 31 January 2021 - £2,000 for each new apprentice they hire aged under 25, and £1,500 for each newly recruited apprentice aged 25 and over.
• £111m to triple the scale of traineeships: with three times more funding available to providers in 2020-21 to support 30,000 new places.
• £101m for a brand new offer to give 18 and 19-year-old school and college leavers the opportunity to study high value Level 2 and 3 courses when there are not employment opportunities available to them.
• £32m over two years to help 269,000 more people receive advice from the National Careers Service.
• £17m to triple the number of sector-based work academy programme placements in 2020/21, enough funding to support an extra 40,000 job seekers with additional training opportunities and the chance of a job.

We have also launched a new £2 billion Kickstart Scheme to create hundreds of thousands of new, fully subsidised jobs for young people across the country. Those aged 16-24, claiming Universal Credit and at risk of long-term unemployment, will be eligible. Funding available for each six-month job placement will cover 100% of the National Minimum Wage for 25 hours a week and employers will be able to top this wage up.