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Richard Graham
I will give way in a moment, if I may. It is interesting that so many hon. Members from the coalition side of the House are here today. They are firmly focused on the importance of apprenticeships, are leading by example and have their own experience as small business men and women. It is disappointing to see the complete absence of any representation from the Opposition, apart from the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Mr Marsden).
Richard Graham
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The situation in his part of Warwickshire is not dissimilar to that in my own neighbouring county of Gloucestershire. The small businesses in the world of the bear and ragged staff have similar issues, which we will certainly come on to.
Mr Hayes
I would not normally interrupt my hon. Friend’s peroration, but he made a comment about the number of colleagues across the House who are taking on apprentices. Does he agree that it may be appropriate to hold some kind of reception when we feel that we have reached a critical number, so that we can celebrate that, use it as a way of advertising the apprenticeship brand and send out a message that we are leading, as he has described, by example?
Richard Graham
I am grateful for the Minister’s remarks. He has brilliantly anticipated the climax of my speech, which was to come a few minutes down the line. The part of my speech that he may not necessarily have anticipated, or will necessarily appreciate, is about the funding of the great celebration that I have in mind, which he has so kindly already agreed to host. He is quite right to mention our own involvement in apprenticeships. I will come round to that, because a number of hon. Members present will want to make their own points and contribute with their own work in the field.
Returning to the question of small businesses and their contribution to both our local economies and collectively the national economy, I mentioned earlier small businesses that employ fewer than five people and their contribution to the UK economy. Small and medium-sized enterprises account for, astonishingly, almost 99% of all enterprises and almost half the country’s private sector turnover. Therefore, the essential argument that I want to start with today is that we cannot underestimate the extent to which small businesses will be the drivers of growth—or of stagnation, should the economy falter, which we all fervently hope it will not, and believe it will not. The question that we have to debate is how we can stimulate, encourage and exhort small businesses to think that taking on an apprentice is the right way forward.
Richard Graham
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. She has direct experience of these things, as do so many Members here today. It is absolutely true that the smallest companies’ greatest fear on the administrative or bureaucratic side relates not necessarily to the paperwork involved in filling in an application form or designing an advert, but to the fact that a huge amount of time and effort may be required, hour by hour and day by day, to manage the apprentice. The worry is that the investment that will need to be made over a year or two before the apprentice can make a significant contribution to the business may not be rewarded at the end of that time because the apprentice might leave, might be recruited by somebody else or might not be able to deliver the return that the small business is looking for on its investment.
I want now to raise a few of the points that the FSB has raised with me, which it believes are relevant to the promotion of apprenticeships in the smallest businesses. On the promotion of ATAs to help small business, one advantage of such agencies is that they would employ the apprentice in the same way that the training company I mentioned in my constituency does. The ATA would deal with issues such as employer compulsory liability insurance, and help of that kind with modern administrative requirements would be useful.
On skill recognition, GTAs could provide an effective route for solving the problem I raised in answer to the point about tailoring the training of apprentices to companies’ requirements. GTAs might well be able to help design new training programmes for specific companies to meet their requirements. Component manufacturers in the engineering sector, for example, which are an important employer in my constituency, may have more concerns and requirements regarding training than we realise. There might be small businesses out there that need something like a GTA to help them design the appropriate training course.
Perhaps I can bring that point alive with an anecdote. In my constituency, we have two makers of high-quality shirts; in fact, when I made my maiden speech in the House last year, I was delighted to be wearing a shirt made in Gloucester. Their shirts are made from high-quality English cotton and sometimes cotton from abroad. They are made in England, but one of the firms is increasingly taking on workers from Poland, where there is a high-quality sewing qualification. People arriving here with that qualification can immediately be put on the factory floor to contribute to the making of high-quality English shirts. It appears that this country does not yet have a similar qualification, which could easily provide the basis for a new form of apprenticeship with shirt manufacturers in my constituency and elsewhere.
I have also touched base with the British Chambers of Commerce, and it is important to recognise its remarks on the take-up of apprentices among small businesses. It believes that there is a case for better marketing to businesses of the resources that are available to them and of the benefits of apprenticeships. If we follow the suggestion of my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), such issues could be covered in what would, effectively, be a marketing flyer. Indeed, it could be designed by the company that he used to run in Swindon. That could be done at very low cost—possibly even pro bono—and the Department could distribute the details with information on business rates.
The British Chambers of Commerce also wants to place greater emphasis on the relevant agency sifting through candidates to find the right ones, rather than simply box-ticking. It says that small businesses have
“a greater fear than larger companies of the wrong candidate”.
From my own experience, I know that finding the right candidate and spending time taking them through an induction programme before offering them a job, which is difficult for a small business, will be increasingly relevant.
Two weeks ago, I presented certificates to people on an apprenticeship course in a large distribution company in my constituency. I asked the gentleman in charge of recruiting apprentices how he did it. He explained that he took all the people who applied, and who had not been ruled out because of a criminal background, on a one-day induction course in his warehousing company. He made a point of having an escorted walk through the company, which was led by a manager who explained the business as the group went through the various parts of the company. A lot of candidates were ruled out early on because they simply were not paying attention or contributing. When the group sat down later for a PowerPoint presentation on the business and what it was trying to achieve, some of those at the back of the room were texting on their mobiles or BlackBerries—something, Mr Davies, I am sure would never happen in this Chamber. In effect, there was a series of soft hurdles, which, by the end of the day, had reduced the number of candidates from about 40 to 15.
The vast majority of our teenagers do not realise how important such things are and what an impact they will have on their job opportunities. There is therefore a duty on us all as constituency MPs, and possibly on the National Apprenticeship Service, to ask employers to lay out in schools, before teenagers leave after their GCSEs or A-levels, exactly what is involved in getting a job, because it is not just about writing a CV. The NAS and the Department for Education could do something on that. The Minister wears the hats of two Departments, and he might want to comment on the way in which the Department for Education could co-operate more with employers to promote apprenticeships for businesses and, indeed, for small businesses that decide to take them up, so that school leavers really understand the challenges ahead.
Mr Hayes
Given the interest in the subject, it might be helpful if I dealt with that point now. Yesterday, in the Select Committee on Education, I was able to advertise the fact that, given my responsibilities in the Department for Education, I want to work with Lord Hill and others to encourage much greater engagement between the world of work and the world of learning by bringing employers into schools and letting people know about the employment opportunities available to them. My hon. Friend can rest assured that we are on the case.
Richard Graham
I am grateful to the Minister; it is extremely helpful to be aware of that. He will have heard me say before—others may wish to comment on this in due course—that I ask every apprentice I meet in my constituency how much help they got from their schools in winning their apprenticeship, and nine and a half times out of 10, the answer is nil, so we have a long way to go on that front.
Let me bring together some of the threads in the debate. We have covered the Government’s welcome commitment to see a vastly increased number of apprenticeships, and the Minister will confirm the figure of 150,000 additional apprenticeships, with 450,000 overall during the lifetime of this Government. We also touched briefly on the greater take-up of apprentices, particularly by large and medium-sized companies across the land in a variety of sectors, and the welcome pick-up in manufacturing, which has certainly driven forward the number of apprenticeships, for example in the crucial engineering sector. I am delighted that the Gloucestershire Training Group, a specialist engineering organisation in my constituency, is now overbooked with new apprentices for next year. I am working with the group to try to achieve new and larger premises to cater for that demand.
We also covered the take-up of apprentices by small businesses. Both the statistical and anecdotal evidence is that it is a great challenge for this, or indeed any, Government. We have looked at some of the factors that could encourage and incentivise the smallest businesses to take on apprentices: administrative and bureaucratic questions, cash incentives, and cost reductions, possibly through wider training funding for older apprentices. We touched briefly on the role of GTAs and ATAs, and I am sure that the Minister will want to say more about that. We have looked at the role of local media and at the feelings of the FSB, the BCC and some Members’ constituents.
The last part of my speech is about what we as MPs can do. I talked about how we can be champions of apprenticeships, both in general and more specifically for smaller businesses. I mentioned the role of apprenticeship fairs and having a specific sectoral focus. I have organised a job fair, which will have a large apprenticeships element, for the black and minority ethnic community in Gloucester in 10 days’ time, and there will be something similar for those with disabilities in due course. There is a large amount we can do, but there is also one specific thing. There are 650 of us in Parliament, and if we each took on an apprentice, that would be 650 additional apprenticeships. Some of my hon. Friends here today have already done so or, like my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), are committed to doing so.
If 100 MPs took on apprentices, it should be celebrated in Parliament with a reception, perhaps generously funded by BIS, with a welcoming speech to all the apprentices by the Minister who champions their cause so doughtily in Parliament and elsewhere. That would send a message across the land that we are not only talking the talk, but walking the walk in finding our own apprentices and, as small business people with fewer than 12 employees, promoting apprenticeships. That is an exhortation to my colleagues, but it is also an advance call on the Minister’s funding, to which I hope he will respond warmly.
I hope that today we send a message around the country that the Government are committed not only to increasing the number of apprenticeships, important though that is, and to highlighting their value in driving forward the future growth prospects for our businesses, vital though that is, but also to stimulating the smallest businesses in the land each to take on an apprentice, because that will both help their growth and serve their community by helping to reduce youth unemployment.
Mr Marsden
I absolutely agree. In my neck of the woods, Blackpool and The Fylde college has done sterling work in that area. There is sometimes an issue about colleges understanding the need to deliver some of their training closer to the workplace if possible and closer to the living space if possible of the people they are trying to reach.
Mr Marsden
I see the Minister nodding, and I suspect that as he represents a rural constituency he understands such issues.
The process is a two-way one, but the Government must consider the unintended consequences of their decisions elsewhere. In their hasty abolition of the regional development agencies, many of the bodies that oversaw local skills and employment policies were swept away. The new local enterprise partnerships have no powers in those areas, as skills policy remains under central control from Whitehall.
The Federation of Small Businesses and other business organisations have been critical of the Government’s failure to give local enterprise partnerships the tools to do the job. Included in that is the concern of the Federation of Small Businesses that there are not enough representatives from small and medium-sized businesses on local enterprise partnership boards. Allowing them to have a greater voice is important in terms of real input in tailoring and structuring skills policy locally, and that includes apprenticeships. Indeed, by their nature, small businesses understand the life-changing impact of apprenticeships, and how that must be balanced against day-to-day needs. We must remember that although much has been said, rightly, about the challenge of youth unemployment, we also face the challenges of demographic shift in the next 10 to 15 years, the projections in the Leitch report, and the particular needs of work-life trade-off if we are to attract older people to become involved with apprenticeships. That includes women in particular. There are impressive models from organisations such as B&Q and British Gas, but we need to see how those good practices can be replicated to their counterparts in small business.
Finally, I want to look at pre-apprenticeship preparation, which has been mentioned by one or two hon. Members, and in particular by the hon. Member for Bradford East in the context of the first job agreement—the FJA. Information, advice and guidance is crucial to inform people about the opportunities provided by apprenticeships, and if young people do not get such advice, SMEs may be deprived of many suitable candidates. It is vital that the Government have a framework that can deliver quality information, advice and guidance. In truth, however, there are still real problems with the new all-age careers service.
I know that the Minister has done his best to take forward such issues in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Nevertheless, to echo earlier remarks, the Department for Education remains singularly unfocused on the need for financial support and for the necessary information, advice and guidance to be provided face to face. I urge the Minister to press his colleagues further on that.
What proposals does the Minister have to monitor completion rates more effectively? What conversations are his officials having with organisations responsible for qualifications about the balance between modular and more traditional structures for apprenticeships? Such things will be key in determining the attitudes of small businesses when taking on apprentices. We all agree that apprenticeships have a very real worth for businesses and apprentices, but the Government must recognise that one size does not fit all. If SMEs are to help lead sustainable economic growth and recovery, they must have the tools to achieve it. We must ensure that apprenticeship frameworks and mechanisms are accessible to all the small businesses that hon. Members have quite rightly praised today, and not only to the big companies that have the money and resources to take on apprentices.
The Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning (Mr John Hayes)
It is an immense pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies, and it is always a pleasure to speak opposite the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Mr Marsden), who presents his case with typical flair and fairness.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) on securing this debate. Over the past year, he and I have had a number of discussions about apprenticeships, and whenever we have done so, he has shown a commendable interest in and enthusiasm for the subject. He has also brought to my attention a series of ideas, reflected in his opening remarks today, about how we can further our policy to expand the number of apprenticeships available. I had the pleasure of visiting Gloucester rugby club with him and taking part in an apprenticeship fair that he had helped organise. It was a splendid occasion, and I know that he plans to take that forward with a number of similar events in his constituency that will be targeted at under-represented groups. Such work is highly commendable.
I am grateful to all hon. Members who have contributed to the debate. As the hon. Member for Blackpool South said, many interesting points have been raised, and I shall try to address as many of them as I can in the time available—I have rather more time today than Ministers usually have when responding to such debates, which is welcome.
To place my remarks in context, let me stress to hon. Members that—make no mistake—apprenticeships are a flagship policy for the Government. It is true that the previous Government made progress on apprenticeships, and I shall say more about that in a moment. It is equally true, however, that apprenticeships have never been more central to public policy than they are today. The programme to build more apprenticeships in Britain than ever seen before in our history is supported by the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and all Ministers with responsibility in the area. That is not merely rhetoric—though I have nothing against rhetoric—and it is illustrated by the fact that, despite financial constraints that were, it is fair to say, unusual in their severity, over the current spending period the Government have dramatically increased the funding available for apprenticeships.
The hon. Member for Blackpool South was kind enough to acknowledge that one of the first things that I did on entering the Government was to transfer £150 million of deadweight Train to Gain funding into apprenticeships to fund an additional 50,000 places.
Mr Hayes
I will come to that in a few moments. When I announce the details of the statistical first release to the House at the end of the month, I am confident that they will show substantial progress and achievement. As hon. Members will know, provisional data already in the public domain suggest that we have made remarkable progress, despite the difficult economic circumstances in which, as has been said, some firms might not usually be expected to consider training or employing new staff.
The commitment that I have articulated was confirmed in the Budget, when the Chancellor announced a further £180 million of funding for apprenticeships. That will enable us to create 40,000 places for young unemployed people, taking them from disengagement to re-engagement, and an additional 10,000 places for advanced and higher level apprenticeships that are focused on SMEs.
The work that I am doing with the Department for Work and Pensions has been mentioned. To an unprecedented degree, I am working with my colleagues to ensure that the welfare reforms being introduced, and particularly the Work programme, marry with the work we are doing on training, skills and apprenticeships. It is important that the 100,000 additional work placements that have been secured have a close relationship with subsequent training and that the system is progressive. The experiences that people gain as they move from disengagement to re-engagement should lead to further learning and training and ultimately to work.
Mr Marcus Jones
Under the previous Government, there was a shocking drop-out rate in the number of apprenticeships started and those completed. In 2009-10 alone, nearly 280,000 apprenticeships were started but only 171,500 were completed. That is shocking. Will the Minister assure me that the Government will pay far more attention to that issue? Although we cannot guarantee that every apprenticeship will be completed, we should ensure that we get a far better rate of completion than in the past.
Mr Hayes
Even a Minister as confident as I am would not wish to disagree with my hon. Friend, because he is so highly regarded both in his constituency and in the House. None the less, I must say in fairness that the previous Government made progress on completions—I do not like to say things in the House that I cannot say with candour. Although it is true that completions, both under the previous Government and this Government have posed a challenge—as described by the hon. Member for Blackpool South—considerable progress was made by the previous Government. Furthermore, to be ever more generous and even more self-deprecating, let me say that it will be a challenge for us to maintain completion levels as we expand the programme. One risk of a rapid expansion in apprenticeships is that we will need to be careful about starts and completions. As more people are drawn into the system by the energy that we invest and the resources we provide, unless we are careful, there is a risk that the number of completions will suffer. As has been suggested, I am working closely with my officials and we must monitor the situation through the NAS and look at what measures we can put into place to ensure completions.
I do not want to move too far from the main thrust of my argument, but one such measure might be to look at outcome payments for large apprenticeship providers—in other words, to work with those large providers and ensure that payment is made on completion. I am in discussion with a number of major national companies that are extremely interested in engaging in such a system, and we will pilot such a scheme with a number of significant apprenticeship providers. That is one of the things that we can do with regard to completions, but my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton was right to draw that issue to hon. Members’ attention, as was the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Blackpool South.
The difficulty for me in all this is that I have invested a considerable amount of my political reputation on the basis that we will indeed create such numbers of apprenticeships. That might be described as a bold move. The shadow Minister and possibly others would be disappointed if I was not poetic at some time in this speech—I was going to say “performance”, but I do not want to undersell myself—and it was Ezra Pound who said:
“If a man isn’t willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he’s no good.”
The risk that I have taken in respect of my opinions is indeed the risk about our endeavours to grow apprenticeship numbers dramatically, but we have to take such risks if we believe that something is right, as Pound suggested, and I do believe that this is right for reasons that I shall detail as I respond to the debate.
Mr Marsden
The Minister will be relieved, possibly, or disappointed to hear that I have no intention of swapping literary quotes with him. Before we lost the thread of the previous useful exchange with the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones), I wanted to ask the Minister whether part of the consultations or part of the consideration of how we make progress on completions will cover whether certain structures of apprenticeship cause more problems between start and completion.
Mr Hayes
Yes, I think that there will be consideration not only of structures, but of whether there are sector-specific problems, whether there are problems with certain kinds of apprenticeship and frameworks and whether there is an issue about different ages of apprentices. The hon. Gentleman will know—indeed, the whole House knows—that we are focusing, as I described earlier, on apprenticeships as a means of re-engaging people who are disengaged. The hon. Member for Bradford East (Mr Ward) described the length—and I might say the difficulty—of the journey that some people make to re-engagement. It is a tough set of challenges for people who were failed by the system first time round. Sometimes, the path to the destination that they seek and we seek for them will be relatively stony. Small bite-sized chunks of learning, delivered in a way that is highly flexible and accessible, are often the way of dealing with that, and we may well need to consider structure in that context.
The hon. Member for Blackpool South will also know that I will announce in the autumn progress on our access to apprenticeships policy. We recognise that many young people in particular do not have the prior attainments necessary to begin even a level 2 apprenticeship. We need to create a ladder for those young people, so that they can acquire the core skills necessary for them to progress subsequently to further training and employment. He is right to say in that context that the form, character and pace of learning need to be appropriate to the circumstances of those learners.
The net effect of the commitments that have been given by the Government is, I believe, that we will create more apprenticeships than ever before in this country. To put that in firmer terms, as the Prime Minister himself has said, we expect to create 250,000 more apprenticeships during the lifetime of the spending period. That will constitute extraordinary growth in the number, compared with what Labour projected. We expect to exceed the previous Government’s target by 250,000. That is extraordinary, unprecedented growth in the number of apprenticeships.
There has never been that kind of growth in this country. However, there are precedents elsewhere. Meeting my French counterpart some time ago, I was interested to learn that the apprenticeship system in France has metamorphosed in the last 20 or so years. The French apprenticeship system was in the doldrums 25 years ago, but the concentration, investment and commitment of successive French Governments have meant that France, like Britain now, sees apprenticeships as critical to delivering the skills necessary to build a competitive economy. Therefore, we know that that can be done with political will and determination, backed by resource.
I have said on many occasions that practical skills and those who learn them remain scandalously undervalued in our society. It has been said in the debate that many people, including some employers, still view apprenticeships as somehow not quite good enough. That is partly about careers advice and guidance and the perception of the routes available, particularly to young people. The matter was raised by the shadow Minister and others, including my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys). By the way, I was delighted to join her in her constituency when I visited Thanet college. I will take this opportunity to say that the work that that college is doing with Canterbury Christ Church university is extraordinarily important in developing a practical route to higher learning for many of the constituents whom my hon. Friend so competently represents.
The advice and guidance that people receive will shape their choices about the learning and employment routes that they take. One should not underestimate the influence that that advice has, particularly on young people, as I said. The truth is that people such as us are particularly advantaged in those terms, or at least our children are. The familial networks and social contacts that my children enjoy will mean that they get pretty good advice about the options available to them at school, college and university and in work. That is not true of the very large number of people who do not enjoy those familial and social contacts. Professional advice and guidance are very important in rebalancing the quality of the advice that is available to those who are most under-represented in higher education—those who start with the most disadvantages.
On that basis, I am determined to develop an all-ages careers service, as hon. Members know. That service will bring together careers professionals to a degree that has not been known previously, with a common set of professional standards and training and consequent accreditation, to deliver high-quality, independent and empirical advice and guidance, including advice and guidance on vocational learning options and practical and technical jobs.
It has been said in the debate—I think that it was said by the hon. Member for Bradford East, my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet and other hon. Members—that the advice given in schools is often inadequate. It is fair to say that it is patchy. Some schools do this rather well; many do it less well. However, what characterises the advice is that it is usually prejudiced by the academic experience of the person offering it. It is a big ask of teachers to be excellent pedagogues and also experts on every kind of career option. It seems to me to be much better for schools to secure independent advice. That is why the Government are putting a Bill through the House—it is progressing from the Commons to the Lords as we speak—that will put a statutory duty on schools to secure just such advice. There will also be unprecedented professional competence.
I am pleased to say, as I hinted teasingly at Question Time in the House earlier today—actually, it was the Secretary of State who revealed it—that we will be working with the Department for Work and Pensions to co-locate the national careers service in Jobcentre Plus from this autumn. We will pilot that process and then have a speedy roll-out. The national careers service, with separate branding, will be available to people in Jobcentre Plus, offering the very kind of empirical advice that I have described. In addition, I will hold discussions with representatives of colleges to consider co-location in our network of further education colleges.
As well as that, I am considering how funding can be provided in a way that incentivises professionals in the careers industry to be bolder and to reach out with a new commercial zeal—of course, the independent advisers are businesses, too—to provide quality advice. That will make so much difference, particularly for those who do not usually get good advice from elsewhere.
I shall say a little more about the perception of apprenticeships and practical learning. We too often undervalue vocational competence. Practical skills and craftsmanship remain objects of admiration for most Britons, but not so among the chi-chi class, the glitterati and the chatterati, who see practical skills as somehow beyond their scope or their understanding.
The Government’s will reflects the people’s will in this, and I am determined, not merely because it is essential for economic purpose but because it is right socially and culturally, to ignore the overtures and shrill complaints of what I might call the haute bourgeoisie liberal establishment—I do not mean the Liberal Democrats, of course; in this context it is liberal with a small l—and make the case for practical vocation and technical learning and practical vocational and technical competency. We must once again value craft. We must elevate the practical.
Part of this concerns the aesthetics of apprenticeships. During adult learners week, I was able to announce a range of measures designed to raise not only the status of apprentices but their self-esteem and the worth that apprenticeships confer. Those measures include the introduction of graduation ceremonies to give public recognition of apprentices’ successes and the creation of alumni networks to allow former apprentices to stay in contact and continue to exchange ideas and experiences.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) made a convincing case for a society of apprentices, and we shall look closely at that. I very much welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester’s acknowledgement of the importance of celebrating apprentices and their achievements, and that was reflected in the comments of the hon. Member for Burnley (Gordon Birtwistle). Hon. Members will be glad that, later this month, the national apprenticeship awards, which I shall attend, will celebrate the achievements of apprentices and employers from all over the country.
I turn now to some of the specific raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester. He said that small and micro-businesses take on apprentices not only to drive up growth but to drive down youth unemployment. He is right. Apprenticeships are good not only for growth but for re-engagement in the economy and for social mobility, social cohesion and social justice. You know as well as any Member, Mr Davies, that social justice, in the spirit of Disraeli, lies at the very heart of Conservatism.
My hon. Friend asked for recognition of the fact that, for many reasons, including business confidence, recruiting apprentices is a challenge for small businesses. I recognise that, and I assure him that I am in no way complacent about the work that must be done to meet that challenge. That is why I have asked the NAS to report to me regularly on the progress that it is making, particularly in that field. We are constantly pushing to do more.
My hon. Friend sought a commitment that we would consider ways to increase small business take-up, possibly through group training associations and apprenticeships training agencies. The Growth and Innovation Fund will allow the development of more GTAs and ATAs. I cannot say too much about that, because the bids have not been considered yet and the results have not been announced. However, my hon. Friend will be pleased to know that a large number of applications relate to the areas that he has mentioned. I am a keen supporter of the GTA model, and I am carefully considering how, and in what circumstances, we might see further role-outs of that model to reduce the burden on small employers of taking on an apprentice.
My hon. Friend spoke about providing some form of incentive to small employers to take on an apprentice that have not done so before. He will be aware that he echoes the observations that Alison Wolf made in her report to the Department for Education on vocational education. She recommended that targeted subsidies should be issued to some employers in some circumstances. Although I cannot confirm any details today, I am not unsympathetic to that view. That will not come as a surprise given that it was in the Conservative manifesto, which I wrote before the election—I must say that I wrote that part, not the whole of it.
Had economic circumstances been different, and given that the coalition partners share a view on the matter, we might well have put measures of that sort into place, but we live in tough times, and it is not possible to do all that we might have done or might have wanted to do. Nevertheless, Alison Wolf’s proposals shed fresh light, and we will be considering them in detail, mindful of the deadweight costs that are always associated with financial support for employers.
My hon. Friend mentioned bureaucracy, transparency and flexibility in the system, and he asked for my assurances on those matters. My officials are working on plans greatly to simplify the apprenticeships system, and to make it as easy as possible for employers of all shapes and sizes to take on an apprentice. Indeed, a taskforce led by major employers has just reported to my officials on the subject. It will use the recommendations of real employers with relevant experience to make such changes a reality. As I have said, we are piloting outcome payments for large employers and developing a toolkit for smaller employers to guide them through the process. Smaller employers often say, as my hon. Friend will acknowledge, that the process is confusing; they are not sure where to turn, or which steps they need to take and when. Bringing the information together in a highly accessible form will counter some of those doubts and answer some of those questions.
My hon. Friend knows that I wrote to all Members during national apprenticeship week in February, urging as many as possible to take on apprentice in their offices. An apprentice works alongside me in my ministerial office—I was with him today—and my Parliamentary Private Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid), has just taken on an apprentice—he is a model of all that is best about the 2010 intake of Members, and I urge all hon. Members to do the same. I would, of course, be delighted to host a reception for Members from across the House with their apprentices not only to celebrate their commitment to the programme but, more importantly, to advertise the apprenticeship brand. If we take steps forward in that regard, we can reasonably ask others to do the same.
As for funding, I will refer that matter to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer who will no doubt respond to my hon. Friend personally. [Laughter.] I jest, Mr Davies. I will of course look at whether my Department can fund such a reception, but the hon. Gentleman cannot expect me to give a detailed commitment at this stage. Certainly, in November, we will be hosting a parliamentary reception in partnership with the NAS for exemplar apprentices, apprenticeship employers, a number of other key partners and a selection of employers who wish to recruit apprentices.
An important factor in raising the status of and demand for apprenticeships is the perception among prospective apprentices and their employers of where an apprenticeship can lead and what an apprentice can become by engaging in an apprenticeship. That is about not only advice, guidance and the aesthetics around apprenticeships, but the promotion of apprenticeships. The kind of fair that my hon. Friend ran in Gloucester and that other hon. Members are now running in their constituencies are immensely important in raising the profile of the brand and in countering some of the mis-assumptions about apprenticeships that might prevail among employers or learners.
I warmly support the 100 apprenticeships in 100 days initiatives that have been run across the country. We will look at other ways in which to promote apprenticeships. We are always keen to be innovative, creative and imaginative, and I assure hon. Members that the NAS is considering a range of ways in which to advertise the virtues of apprenticeships in every way.
Last year, we published in the national press the names of all those people who had achieved higher apprenticeships in the same way in which we publish the names of people who achieve degrees and postgraduate qualifications. That is the kind of thing that I mean when I discuss new ways in which we can celebrate success. Such ambitions have been broadly welcomed by employers as steps in the right direction. In the final analysis, the impact of an expanded and improved apprenticeships system on learners’ lives and on our collective prospects for economic growth depend most of all on employers’ willingness to take on apprentices. Government can only do so much. We celebrate the 85,000 employers who currently take on apprentices, and we should recognise their commitment to those people—their willingness to invest in individual futures.
Many larger employers appreciate just what a boost apprentices can give to a company. During the course of this year, we have seen a welcome number of larger businesses pledging to create or expand apprenticeship programmes. My hon. Friend is right to point out that smaller employers can face particular problems in that regard. It has been said by a number of hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton, that small businesses are critical to the success of this project, and that is because they are critical to the success of our economy more generally. They are the very backbone of the British economy. Working with very small businesses to help them to deal with some of the burdens and hurdles associated with apprenticeships is a priority for the Government.
Research has shown that SMEs tend to be less aware of apprenticeships and their benefits than larger firms. I pay tribute to those SMEs that take on apprentices, which form the majority of apprenticeships. None the less, we must go further. The remedy for some of the difficulties lies with my Department and the NAS, and we are working determinedly together to reduce to a minimum, consistent with quality assurance, the bureaucratic pressures associated with training an apprentice. We have already acted to provide special help for the increasing number of SMEs, such as those in advanced manufacturing and digital industries, which require high-level skills. The 10,000 additional high-level apprenticeships will be focused largely in SMEs. We are also offering new grant funding and will support businesses coming together as consortia to build advanced and higher-level apprenticeship schemes to address skills gaps. That could include setting up new training frameworks and delivering joint apprenticeship training.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) made a bold bid on behalf of the Kidderminster business enterprise zone. Although I cannot comment on the detail of that, I acknowledge his well-known commitment to his constituency.
The shadow Minister spoke about the structure of schemes. There is an argument for a modular approach. We will consider that, because it is particularly relevant to micro-businesses, the virtues of which have been advertised by many Members.
It is important to recognise that employing an apprentice might not always be possible for every small business. As my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester has pointed out, that is one good reason to look seriously at GTAs and ATAs. Such measures will help to ensure not only that we provide more apprenticeships, but that apprenticeships are available in a wider range of companies and a larger number of specialisms than ever before. That is important for rural communities. My constituents simply cannot travel long distances to large companies to do apprenticeships, which they might be able to do more easily in an urban area. Therefore, the roll-out to more companies, especially small companies, has disproportionate significance in those kinds of constituencies.
The commitment that the Government have made to apprenticeships is unequivocal and unabated. That is good news for the people and businesses of Gloucester and for people up and down the country. Apprenticeships embody everything that this Government and I personally stand for. Politics is about ideas, but ideas stripped of feeling and heartfelt sentiment are cold, arid and sorry things. My heart-felt commitment to apprenticeships is not something for which I apologise. Benjamin Disraeli said:
“Never apologise for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologise for the truth.”
The truth is that apprenticeships deliver both for our economy and for a wider social purpose. By extending apprenticeship opportunities, we will feed social mobility. This ladder of opportunity will enable the most disadvantaged to climb to highly skilled, highly paid and respected employment.
However, in the end, what we earn is less significant than what we do and what we are. The worth and purposeful pride that people gain from an apprenticeship and from acquiring a competence that has economic value are immensely important in building a society that works. Every business can play a vital part in fulfilling this vision, and I will work to ensure that the barriers in their way are pulled down. Together we can create a society where all feel valued because each is valued. I am talking about a bolder, better and bigger nation—a British future as glorious as Britain’s past.