Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Birkenhead)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what data his Department holds on the number of students that are expected to graduate in 2021.
Answered by Michelle Donelan
The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) collects and publishes data on students enrolled in higher education (HE) in the UK.
The latest statistics on students graduating from HE refer to the academic year 2019/20. They are available in Figure 15 (https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/sb258/figure-15) of the HESA publication ‘Higher Education Statistics: UK’: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/news/27-01-2021/sb258-higher-education-student-statistics.
Statistics about students obtaining qualifications in the 2020/21 academic year will be published by the HESA in January 2022. The department does not hold an estimate of how many students are expected to graduate.
Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Birkenhead)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many grants have been awarded to firms to take on an apprenticeship since the most recent Spending Review; and in which sectors those grants have been allocated.
Answered by Gillian Keegan
Apprenticeships will be more important than ever in helping businesses to recruit the right people and develop the skills they need to recover and grow. To help employers offer new apprenticeships, they are now able to claim £2,000 for every new apprentice they hire under the age of 25, in recognition of the particular impacts of COVID-19 on the employment prospects of this group, and £1,500 for new apprentices aged 25 and over. These incentive payments were announced as part of the government’s Plan for Jobs in July 2020 and the extension of the scheme (to the end of March 2021) was announced in the November Spending Review. Employers have been able to register to claim the incentive since 1 September 2020.
It is encouraging that employers continue to see the value apprentices can bring to their businesses; as of 1 December 2020 employers had so far claimed incentive payments for 11,520 apprentices. We do not hold figures for incentive payments by industry sector.
Updated figures will be published in the ‘Apprenticeships and traineeships: January 2021’ statistics publication on 28 January 2021, available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/announcements/apprenticeships-and-traineeships-january-2021.
Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Birkenhead)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many grants have been awarded to firms to support trainees to gain work experience since the Spending Review 2020.
Answered by Gillian Keegan
We are supporting the largest-ever expansion of traineeships, providing an additional 30,000 places in 2020/21 academic year, to ensure that more young people have access to high-quality training. To encourage this, we have introduced £1000 incentive payments for employers who offer traineeship work placement opportunities between 1 September 2020 and 31 July 2021. The new incentive payment will enable employers to apply for £1000 per learner, for up to 10 learners per region, in each of the 9 regions of England.
From 27 January, employers can register to claim this incentive payment and as such, we do not yet have data on the take-up of incentive payments. Employers will be able to claim the incentive payment for all completed traineeship work experience placements that take place between the 1 September 2020 and 31 July 2021 even if the traineeship started before the 1 September 2020. We will monitor the take-up of the new payments and will assess their impact on traineeships starts to ensure traineeships continue to provide the extra support required by young people for them to progress into work or onto an apprenticeship.
Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Birkenhead)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to monitor Chartwell UK's progress in delivering the free school meals programme.
Answered by Vicky Ford
The continuing provision of free school meals to children from out of work families or those on low incomes is of the utmost importance to this government. Guidance can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-free-school-meals-guidance/covid-19-free-school-meals-guidance-for-schools.
The department does not hold a contract with any provider to provide free school meals of lunch parcels to children. School catering contracts are agreed locally, and are held at school, academy trust, or local authority level. We have guidance in place allowing schools to decide the best approach for supporting free school meal pupils who are at home. This can be through lunch parcels, local vouchers or the national voucher scheme which was available from Monday.
The images circulating of poor-quality food parcels are unacceptable. On 13 January 2021, my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, met with Chartwell’s and other leading school food suppliers and caterers to insist on urgent action to make sure lunch parcels meet the standards we expect. We are grateful to those firms who are working hard with schools to provide nutritious, balanced lunches for children.
If a parent is concerned about the standards of their lunch parcel, they should speak directly with their school. If a parent cannot resolve their concern through their school, they can contact the department. The department will make contact with suppliers where concerns are escalated, to ensure they are following the good practice guidance we have set out. We will also alert the school to confirm appropriate contract management arrangements are in place, so that immediate improvements are made.
Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Birkenhead)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many new apprenticeships were made available in the manufacturing industry in each year since 2010.
Answered by Gillian Keegan
The most recent statistics on apprenticeship starts by industry sector cover the academic years 2012/13 to 2018/19 and are published on GOV.UK: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/apprenticeships-in-england-by-industry-characteristics
The following table shows the number of apprenticeship starts in the manufacturing industry in England between academic years 2012/13 and 2018/19.
| Academic year | ||||||
| 2012/13 | 2013/14 | 2014/15 | 2015/16 | 2016/17 | 2017/18 | 2018/19 |
Total matched apprenticeship starts | 450,710 | 388,590 | 445,910 | 457,020 | 449,830 | 346,840 | 366,170 |
C - Manufacturing | 29,780 | 27,230 | 32,180 | 36,820 | 36,170 | 26,160 | 26,850 |
Data previous to 2012/13 is unavailable and data for 2019/20 will be published in February 2021.
Asked by: Alison McGovern (Labour - Birkenhead)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he had made of new apprenticeships that were taken up by people under the age of 25 from low income backgrounds in each year since 2010.
Answered by Gillian Keegan
The department does not hold information on the income backgrounds of apprentices.
We publish breakdowns of apprenticeship starts by learner age:
We also publish breakdowns of apprenticeship starts by Indices of Multiple Deprivation of the learner’s home postcode from 2014/15 onwards: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/apprenticeships-and-traineeships.