Asked by: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will publish a list of Youth Hub locations in Great Britain as of 19 June 2023.
Answered by Mims Davies - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Youth Hubs are part of the wider DWP Youth Offer which also includes the Youth Employment Programme and Youth Employability Coaches. Youth Hubs across Great Britain bring together employment support from a Jobcentre Plus work coach and place-based support from local partnerships to help young people into work. The support offered in a Youth Hub is dependent on local needs and includes skills, training, employment provision and dedicated support services.
The below list of open Youth Hubs is valid as of 19 June 2023. Due to changes in local needs new Youth Hubs may open, and existing Youth Hubs may close. The number of open Youth Hubs may therefore fluctuate.
Group | Youth Hub Name |
Central and West Scotland | Glasgow Central Based East Youth Hub |
| Glasgow Kelvin College Youth Hub |
| Glasgow/Central Base/Youth Hub |
| Invest Youth Hub |
| Kilmarnock Youth Hub |
East and North Scotland | Aberdeen NESCol Youth Hub |
| Alloa FV College Campus Youth Hub |
| Dundee and Angus College Kingsway |
| Dundee Angus |
| Dundee Helm |
| Dundee Street League Youth Hub |
| Elgin Youth Employability Hub @ Moray Pathways |
| Forth Valley College |
| Stirling Community Enterprise Youth Hub |
| West Fife Youth Hub |
| West Lothian College |
London & Essex | Barking BLC Youth Hub |
| Enfield / Youth Hub |
| Grays Inspire Youth Hub |
| Hackney Youth Hub |
| Hammersmith & Fulham Youth Hub |
| Haringey Youth Hub |
| Islington / Youth Hub |
| Make It Happen Youth Hub |
| Opportunity Space (Greenwich and Bexley) |
| Opportunity Space Lewisham |
| Westminster/ Youth Hub |
North and East Midlands | Harworth |
| Leicester Youth Hub |
| Lincoln / The Network / Youth Hub |
| Northampton Youth Hub |
| Norwich |
| YES Derbyshire |
North Central England | Accrington Youth Hub |
| Barnsley Youth Hub |
| Barrow Youth Hub |
| Blackpool Youth Hub |
| Bradford / Vibe / Youth Hub |
| Burnley Thrive Youth Hub |
| Crossfield House Youth Hub |
| Dewsbury Youth Hub |
| Doncaster Youth Hub |
| Fleetwood Youth Hub |
| Hemsworth Youth Hub |
| Huddersfield Youth Hub |
| Keighley Vibe |
| Kendal/Youth Hub |
| Leeds Dewsbury Road |
| Pendle Yes Youth Hub |
| Penrith Youth Hub |
| Rotherham Community & Employment Youth Hub |
| Sheffield East Youth Hub |
| Sheffield South East Youth Hub |
| Sheffield South Youth Hub |
| Sheffield Specialist Youth Hub |
| Sheffield United Community Foundation Youth Hub |
| Sheffield Wednesday Youth Hub |
| Skelmersdale Youth Hub |
| Wakefield Youth Hub |
| Whitehaven/Youth Hub |
| Workington/Youth Hub |
North East England | Darlington/Youth Hub |
| Durham LA/Peterlee/Youth Hub |
| Durham Works |
| DurhamLA/Stanley/Youth Hub |
| Hartlepool/Enterprise Centre/Youth Hub |
| Redcar & Cleveland/Grangetown/Youth Hub |
| Stockton/Youth Hub |
North West England | Altrincham Youth Hub |
| Ellergreen/North/Youth Hub |
| Farnworth Youth Hub |
| Halton Youth Hub |
| Hyde & Denton Youth Hub |
| Leigh Youth Hub |
| Liverpool Reach Youth Hub |
| Liverpool/MYA/Youth Hub |
| Liverpool/Thrive/Youth Hub |
| Manchester Youth Hub |
| Merseyside Community Training (Quinnovations) |
| Oldham Youth Hub |
| Partington Youth Hub |
| Power in partnership (Widnes) |
| Rochdale Youth Hub |
| Sefton Youth Hub - The Big Onion |
| St Helens Youth Hub |
| Stockport Youth Hub |
| Westhoughton Youth Hub |
| Wigan Youth Hub |
South East England | Addlestone Youth Hub |
| Ashford Youth Hub |
| Brighton and Hove Youth Hub |
| Brooklands College Youth Hub |
| Camberley Youth Hub |
| Crawley Youth Hub |
| Epsom Youth Hub |
| Hastings Youth Hub |
| Rosehill Community Centre Youth Hub |
| Staines Elmsleigh Centre |
| Woking Youth Hub |
| Worthing Youth Hub |
South West England | Bristol Youth Hub |
| Havant Youth Hub |
| Plymouth Youth Hub |
| Southampton Central Youth Hub |
Wales | Cwmbran All About Youth Hub |
| Newport Central Youth Hub |
| Newport East Youth Hub |
| Newport North All About Youth |
| Swansea Youth Hub |
West Midlands | Bilston YH |
| Birmingham Library Youth Hub |
| Birmingham Lighthouse Youth Hub |
| Birmingham South Youth Hub |
| Coventry Job shop Youth Hub |
| Dudley Skills Shop Youth Hub |
| Solihull Youth Hub |
| Telford Youth Hub |
| Wolverhampton The Way Youth Hub |
| Worcester County Council |
Asked by: Luke Evans (Conservative - Bosworth)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, what discussions she has had with relevant stakeholders in the East Midlands, including Bosworth, to help ensure that the region can make use of potential opportunities through the trade agreements with Australia and New Zealand.
Answered by Conor Burns
Dedicated officials in the East Midlands regularly discuss the opportunities free trade agreements (FTAs) present with Local Enterprise Partnerships, Business Representative Organisations, and local Chambers of Commerce.
We also consult stakeholders through ‘town hall’ style briefings, roundtables, webinars and bilateral & group engagements. For example, we held an update for stakeholders on the UK-Australia FTA in December 2021, and a further update on the UK–New Zealand FTA in February 2022.
Throughout negotiations, the department consulted various stakeholder groups and will continue to do so to ensure that citizens and businesses across the East Midlands take advantage of our first two from-scratch FTAs.
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps his Department is taking to support job creation schemes in (a) Coventry North East constituency, (b) Coventry and (c) the West Midlands.
Answered by Lee Rowley - Minister of State (Minister for Housing)
The focus of Government intervention is to create the conditions for businesses to thrive, grow and create jobs. Local Enterprise Partnerships lead from the Government perspective on supporting businesses to innovate, improve, make progress and create jobs.
For the financial year 2021/22 BEIS has provided £542,000 in core funding to the Coventry and Warwickshire LEP to support its Growth Hub. Between 1 April 2020 and 30 September 2021, the Coventry & Warwickshire Growth Hub self-reported that it reached over 52,000 business individuals (including via digital channels). This included supporting 3,303 businesses, including face-to-face support, of which 402 received high intensity support of 12 hours or more and helped 227 individuals start a business.
In addition, Coventry and Warwickshire LEP has been provided with capital funding for a suite of infrastructure projects aimed at providing the right conditions for businesses to grow.
£131.84 million of Growth Deal funding has been spent on projects that have improved transport infrastructure, improved broadband infrastructure, and provided new R&D business support facilities, and are on track to enable businesses to create up to 4,000 jobs alongside other benefits to the local economy. This has also included building new apprenticeship training facilities at Warwick Manufacturing Group, a new skills hub at Coventry City College, and delivering employment support programmes to ensure local people are able to take advantage of the jobs created by these interventions.
A further £123.8m has been awarded to the regions LEPs and the West Midlands Combined Authority as part of the Getting Building Fund. This funding is now delivering a set of projects predicted to enable businesses to create over 7,910 new jobs and over 2000 construction jobs in the region. In Coventry, this has seen direct investment in the Very Light Rail project.
Asked by: Steve Reed (Labour (Co-op) - Croydon North)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many projects have been delivered in each Local Enterprise Partnership through Local Growth Deals in each round of the Growth Deal programme.
Answered by Paul Scully
All payments from the 3 rounds of Growth Deals have been issued to Local Enterprise partnerships (LEPs) as of last year. LEPs are continuing to deliver the projects funded under these deals and currently there are 2109 Local Growth Fund (LGF) projects across all 38 LEPs as shown in the table.
LEP | Total Projects |
Black County | 64 |
Buckinghamshire Thames Valley | 34 |
Cheshire and Warrington | 59 |
Coast to Capital | 88 |
Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly | 27 |
Coventry and Warwickshire | 35 |
Cumbria | 34 |
Derby, Derbyshire, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire | 55 |
Dorset | 39 |
Enterprise M3 | 88 |
Greater Lincolnshire | 36 |
Gloucestershire | 28 |
Greater Manchester | 69 |
Greater Cambridge and Peterborough | 51 |
Heart of the South West | 53 |
Hertfordshire | 67 |
Humber | 51 |
Lancashire | 52 |
London | 143 |
Leeds City Region | 160 |
Leicester | 20 |
Liverpool City Region | 138 |
New Anglia | 48 |
North East | 63 |
Oxfordshire | 31 |
Sheffield City Region | 80 |
Solent | 38 |
South East | 94 |
South East Midlands | 58 |
Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire | 32 |
Swindon and Wiltshire | 24 |
Tees Valley | 48 |
Thames Valley Berkshire | 43 |
The Marches | 21 |
West of England | 50 |
Worcestershire | 24 |
York, North Yorkshire and East Riding | 64 |
Total Projects | 2109 |
Asked by: Colleen Fletcher (Labour - Coventry North East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he has made an assessment of the effect of the closure of Coventry College’s Henley Campus on (a) further education provision and (b) social mobility in Coventry North East constituency.
Answered by Gillian Keegan - Secretary of State for Education
Coventry College has two campuses, City and Henley, located less than two miles apart. The further education commissioner and the team have undertaken two visits to Coventry College in 2020, on the 9 and 10 March and 22 September. Space utilisation at both sites is below 30%, with Henley requiring significant capital investment to bring it up to a good standard. Travel to learn patterns indicate that learners travel from across the city to access provision at Henley and as such will not be adversely affected by the move to City.
Local authorities have a critical role to play in ensuring adequacy of provision and support for young people to access and participate in education and training. Their responsibilities and duties relating to participation are set out in the published statutory guidance for local authorities. This includes securing sufficient suitable education and training provision for all young people in their area who are over compulsory school age, but under 19 or aged 19 to 25 and for whom an education, health and care plan is maintained. This is a duty under the Education Act 1996. To fulfil this, local authorities need to have a strategic overview of the provision available in their area and to identify and resolve gaps in provision. More information on provision and support for young people in education and training can be found here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/561546/Participation-of-young-people-in-education-employment-or-training.pdf.
Where local authorities feel that there is a specific gap in provision that cannot be addressed by existing providers, there is a process by which this can be brought to the attention of the Education and Skills Funding Agency for consideration and action as appropriate.
No colleges have closed in Coventry in the past ten years. In 2017 City College Coventry merged with Henley College to form Coventry College. No campuses have closed in Coventry in the past ten years. Three college sites have closed across the West Midlands in the past ten years.
In recent years capital funding has been managed by the local enterprise partnerships via the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy. However, my right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister, announced in June 2020 that an initial £200 million of the £1.5 billion capital funding to upgrade the further education estate was to be brought forward to this financial year (2020-21). This was paid to all eligible further education colleges and designated institutions in September 2020. Coventry College received £1.044 million. The Further Education Capital Transformation Fund, which will invest the remaining £1.3 billion over the coming 5 years, to upgrade the further education estate, opened for bids from colleges on 21 January 2021.
As part of the review, undertaken by the further education commissioner, and during recent engagement with Coventry College the availability of this capital funding has been discussed. Given the poor space utilisation at both Henley and City sites (less than 30% at each), the board agreed to close the Henley site and focus capital investment on creating enhanced facilities on the City site.
Asked by: Anthony Browne (Conservative - South Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many city deal areas that fall (a) wholly and (b) partly within combined authority areas are (i) controlled by a combined authority, (ii) controlled by a local enterprise partnership and (iii) not controlled by a combined authority or a local enterprise partnership; and how those city deals not controlled by a combined authority or a local enterprise partnership are governed.
Answered by Jake Berry
City Deals were bespoke negotiations between Government and Local Enterprise Partnerships conducted in England between 2011 and 2014. The only area at this time to have a Combined Authority in place was Greater Manchester, although Liverpool City Region, Sheffield City Region, North East, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire Combined Authorities were all established in 2014. City Deals aimed to help drive the growth of cities across the country: identifying barriers to growth and also investing to drive future economic growth on the basis of the specific economic strengths, assets and opportunities of places.
A list of all English City Deals and their relevant Local Enterprise Partnership and Combined Authority is available below:
City Deal | Local Enterprise Partnership | Combined Authority |
Wave 1 | ||
Greater Birmingham | Greater Birmingham and Solihull | West Midlands (established 2016) |
Bristol | West of England | West of England (established 2017) |
Leeds | Leeds City Region | West Yorkshire (established 2014) |
Liverpool | Liverpool City Region | Liverpool City Region (established 2014) |
Greater Manchester | Greater Manchester | Greater Manchester (established 2011) |
Newcastle | North East | North East (established 2014) |
Nottingham | Derby, Derbyshire, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire (D2N2) |
|
Sheffield | Sheffield City Region | Sheffield City Region (established 2014) |
Wave 2 | ||
Black Country | Black Country | West Midlands (established 2016) |
Greater Brighton | Coast to Capital (C2C) |
|
Greater Cambridge | Greater Cambridge and Greater Peterborough | Cambridgeshire and Peterborough (established 2017) |
Coventry and Warwickshire | Coventry and Warwickshire | West Midlands (established 2016) |
Hull and Humber | Humber |
|
Greater Ipswich | New Anglia |
|
Leicester and Leicestershire | Leicester and Leicestershire |
|
Greater Norwich | New Anglia |
|
Oxford and Oxfordshire | Oxfordshire |
|
Plymouth and the South West Peninsula | Heart of the South West LEP and Cornwall and Isles of Scilly LEP |
|
Preston, South Ribble and Lancashire | Lancashire |
|
Southampton and Portsmouth | Solent |
|
Southend-on-Sea | South East |
|
Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire | Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire |
|
Sunderland and South Tyneside | North East | North East (established 2014) |
Swindon and Wiltshire | Swindon and Wiltshire |
|
Tees Valley | Tees Valley | Tees Valley (established 2016) |
Thames Valley Berkshire | Thames Valley Berkshire |
|
Asked by: Luke Evans (Conservative - Bosworth)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent assessment her Department has made of the potential economic merits of Local Enterprise Partnerships for (a) Hinckley, (b) Bosworth constituency and (c) the East Midlands.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) play an important role in providing a business voice to inform investment decisions and drive economic growth. The Leicester and Leicestershire LEP has supported Hinckley and Bosworth through a total of £13.1m of Local Growth Funds since 2014. This has included:
There are 3 LEPs in the East Midlands: Derby, Derbyshire, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire (D2N2); Leicester and Leicestershire; and Greater Lincolnshire. Through these LEPs, the Government has invested £539m in projects to create infrastructure, drive job creation, and accelerate skills development.
Asked by: Ben Bradley (Conservative - Mansfield)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to promote the benefits of adult learning in the East Midlands.
Answered by Anne Milton
We are developing a skills system that can drive improvements in social mobility and are doing this by implementing key skills reforms, which although are national policies, will benefit people in all areas and from all backgrounds.
The National Careers Service offers free careers information, advice and guidance to both young people and adults through a website and telephone helpline. Adults are also supported through the local community based service where face to face guidance is available.
The Adult Education Budget is used to engage adults, including those furthest from learning and the workplace, to provide them with the skills and learning they need to equip them for work, an apprenticeship or further learning. It enables more tailored programmes of learning to be made available, which do not need to include a qualification.
Apprenticeships are accessible to people of all ages, and training can be delivered flexibly to meet the needs of people with children returning to part-time work or those needing to re-train. We are making apprenticeships longer and better, with more off-the job training and proper assessment at the end. New apprenticeship standards across all levels are being designed and driven by industry, which is creating higher quality training that will lead to a more skilled and productive economy. The new apprenticeships campaign, Fire It Up, was launched in January 2019. This campaign is working to increase the number of high quality apprenticeships offered and started, by changing the way people think about apprenticeships, demonstrating that they are an aspirational choice for anyone with passion and energy.
We are developing a National Retraining Scheme, which will help prepare adults for the future changes to the economy, including those brought about by automation, and help them to retrain into better jobs. The scheme is being developed and rolled out in stages so that we can learn and adapt to users’ needs as we go. Learning from the career learning pilots, the Construction Skills Fund and the Adult Learning Technology Innovation Fund will inform how we can better engage adults about the opportunities and benefits of training.
We have been working with all local enterprise partnerships in the East Midlands to ensure that Skills Advisory Panels (SAPs) are established by October 2019. SAPs aim to bring together local employers and skills providers, including colleges, independent training providers and universities, to pool knowledge on skills and labour market needs and to work together to understand and address key local challenges, including helping to tackle local skills shortages. SAPs will help address both immediate needs and challenges and look at what is required to help local areas adapt to future labour market changes and to grasp future opportunities. This will help universities, colleges and other providers deliver the skills required by employers, now and in the future.
Asked by: Ben Bradley (Conservative - Mansfield)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent steps the Government has taken to boost the productivity of small and medium-sized enterprises in the East Midlands.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
Small and medium sized enterprises in the East Midlands can access business advice through their local Growth Hubs. Led and governed by Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEP), Growth Hubs provide a free, impartial, ‘single point of contact’ to help businesses in the area identify and access the right support for them at the right time no matter their size or sector. The LEPs which cover the East Midlands have self-reported that in FY2017-2018 their Growth Hubs supported over 12,000 businesses and helped over 300 individuals start a business
Since its creation in 2012, the Government-backed Start Up Loans company has made 3,573 loans worth over £25.5m to the East Midlands region. In the Mansfield constituency, 66 loans have been made worth £503,200[1].
April 2019’s increase in the National Living Wage (NLW) means that 157,000 workers in the East Midlands have received an inflation-beating pay rise of 4.9%. The latest estimates suggest that 5,000 workers in Mansfield are receiving the NLW and National Minimum Wage.
The Industrial Strategy is creating an economy that works for everyone; setting out a long-term plan to boost productivity by backing businesses to create good jobs and increase the earning power of people throughout the United Kingdom. Nationally, the Government is providing up to £18.6 million to Be the Business to increase firm level productivity by supporting SMEs to make simple changes and learn from each other.
And the £9 million Business Basics Programme is testing innovative ways of encouraging SMEs to take-up proven technology and business practices that can boost productivity. A total of £2 million has been allocated to projects from the first round of the Business Basics Fund and we are expecting to allocate a further £2 million of funding in Autumn 2019.
[1] At May 2019
Asked by: David Drew (Labour (Co-op) - Stroud)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what the names are of each Local Enterprise Partnership; and which partnerships have appointed a board member with responsibility for rural issues.
Answered by Kelly Tolhurst
The 38 Local Enterprise Partnership (LEPs) areas are Black Country; Buckinghamshire Thames Valley; Cambridge and Peterborough; Cheshire & Warrington; Coast to Capital LEP; Cornwall & Isles of Scilly; Coventry and Warwickshire; Cumbria; Derby, Derbyshire, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire (D2N2); Dorset LEP; Enterprise M3; Gloucestershire (GFirst) LEP; Greater Birmingham and Solihull; Greater Lincolnshire; Greater Manchester; Heart of the South West; Hertfordshire; Humber LEP; Lancashire LEP; Leeds City Region; Leicester & Leicestershire; Liverpool City Region LEP; London; New Anglia LEP; North East LEP; Oxfordshire LEP; Sheffield City Region LEP; Solent LEP; South East LEP; South East Midlands LEP; Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire LEP; Swindon and Wiltshire LEP; Tees Valley LEP; Thames Valley Berkshire; The Marches; West of England LEP; Worcestershire LEP and York and North Yorkshire LEP.
The following 12 LEPs have appointed a board member with an explicit responsibility for rural issues: Cheshire & Warrington; Cornwall & Isles of Scilly; Dorset LEP; Enterprise M3; Heart of the South West; New Anglia LEP; North East LEP; South East LEP; South East Midlands LEP; Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire LEP; Swindon and Wiltshire LEP; and York and North Yorkshire LEP.
Other Local Enterprise Partnerships manage rural issues in a variety of ways, for example in Gloucestershire (GFirst) there is a member of the LEP agri-food & rural business sector group on the board, by the appointment of an agri-food champion (The Marches), through engagement at SME boards (Coventry and Warwickshire) and by drawing on the expertise of rural organisations (Worcestershire).