Asked by: Emma Reynolds (Labour - Wycombe)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of apprenticeship levy-paying employers have hired apprentices.
Answered by Anne Milton
The attached table shows the figures for apprenticeship starts for Wolverhampton North East constituency for each month by academic year from 2015/16 to 2018/19 (quarter 1 reported to date).
In May 2017, there were significant structural changes to the apprenticeship funding system, including the introduction of the apprenticeship levy and apprenticeship service. The profile of apprenticeship starts changed significantly, both in the run-up to the introduction of the levy and subsequently. Care should be taken when comparing individual months with previous years as they are unlikely to provide a meaningful year-on-year trend. Numbers of reported starts are likely to change as the reforms to apprenticeship funding continue to bed in and employers engage with the new system.
The information requested is not held centrally regarding the proportion of levy-paying firms that have taken on apprentices. However, the department holds information on the number of apprenticeship service accounts (ASAs) registered. As of 31 December 2018, there were 16,100 ASAs registered on the apprenticeship service.
Since the introduction of the levy, 268,500 levy-supported starts have been recorded for England. Levy-supported learners are those supported by levy-paying organisations using at least £1 of their own levy funds. For context, there have been 555,800 total starts for England since the levy (from quarter 4 of 2016/17 to quarter 1 of 2018/19).
In addition, in January 2018, we published that 91.7 percent of those who had PAYE schemes with apprenticeship levy declarations in England of over £150,000 had registered on the apprenticeship service.
Asked by: Emma Reynolds (Labour - Wycombe)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much money his Department estimates is dormant in apprenticeship levy accounts.
Answered by Anne Milton
Employers who pay the apprenticeship levy are able to create an apprenticeship service account to access levy funds, which will be held for 2 years after entering their account. We apply a 24-month expiry period on funds after they enter an account to encourage employers to plan and spend funds in good time. Any unspent funds from apprenticeship service accounts after the 24-month expiry period will be used to pay for apprenticeship training for non-levy paying employers. We do not therefore consider funds held in apprenticeships service accounts to be ‘dormant’.
Spending on the apprenticeship programme is demand-led. Employers choose which apprenticeships they offer and at what level, how many apprenticeships to offer and when to offer them in order to meet their current and future skills needs. We do not anticipate that all employers who pay the levy will need or want to use all the funds in their accounts. However, any unspent funds are used to support existing apprenticeship learners and levy-paying employers who spend more than the funds available in their accounts and to fund training with employers that do not pay the levy.
Asked by: Emma Reynolds (Labour - Wycombe)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many apprenticeships have been created in Wolverhampton North East (a) in each of the twelve months before the introduction of the apprenticeship levy and (b) in each month since the levy was introduced.
Answered by Anne Milton
The attached table shows the figures for apprenticeship starts for Wolverhampton North East constituency for each month by academic year from 2015/16 to 2018/19 (quarter 1 reported to date).
In May 2017, there were significant structural changes to the apprenticeship funding system, including the introduction of the apprenticeship levy and apprenticeship service. The profile of apprenticeship starts changed significantly, both in the run-up to the introduction of the levy and subsequently. Care should be taken when comparing individual months with previous years as they are unlikely to provide a meaningful year-on-year trend. Numbers of reported starts are likely to change as the reforms to apprenticeship funding continue to bed in and employers engage with the new system.
The information requested is not held centrally regarding the proportion of levy-paying firms that have taken on apprentices. However, the department holds information on the number of apprenticeship service accounts (ASAs) registered. As of 31 December 2018, there were 16,100 ASAs registered on the apprenticeship service.
Since the introduction of the levy, 268,500 levy-supported starts have been recorded for England. Levy-supported learners are those supported by levy-paying organisations using at least £1 of their own levy funds. For context, there have been 555,800 total starts for England since the levy (from quarter 4 of 2016/17 to quarter 1 of 2018/19).
In addition, in January 2018, we published that 91.7 percent of those who had PAYE schemes with apprenticeship levy declarations in England of over £150,000 had registered on the apprenticeship service.
Asked by: Emma Reynolds (Labour - Wycombe)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what his Department's policy is on the collection of payments for (a) ordinary student loans and (b) student maintenance loans from recipients of universal credit; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Sam Gyimah
The repayment of student loans is governed by the Education (Student Loans) (Repayment) Regulations 2009 (as amended).
Borrowers, whether in receipt of universal credit or not, do not start making repayments to their student loans until they earn above the relevant repayment threshold. Once earning over the repayment threshold, the amount a borrower will repay each month is linked to their income, not to the amount borrowed or to the rate of interest.
Further information about repaying student loans can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/repaying-your-student-loan.
Asked by: Emma Reynolds (Labour - Wycombe)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many approved childcare providers currently offer 30 hours of free childcare a week in Wolverhampton North East constituency.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
The information requested is not held centrally. Specifically, information is not held at constituency level.
On 28 June 2018, we published data which indicated that the number of childcare providers offering 30 hours free childcare in Wolverhampton was 80. This information can be found in Table 23LA of the ‘Education provision: children under 5 years of age, January 2018’ document: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/education-provision-children-under-5-years-of-age-january-2018.
Asked by: Emma Reynolds (Labour - Wycombe)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many approved childcare providers were located in Wolverhampton North East constituency in each of the last seven years for which data are available.
Answered by Nadhim Zahawi
This is a matter for Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector, Amanda Spielman. I have asked her to write to the hon. Member and a copy of her reply will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
Asked by: Emma Reynolds (Labour - Wycombe)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he has made of the number of apprenticeships have been created in each month since the introduction of the apprenticeship levy in Wolverhampton North East Constituency.
Answered by Anne Milton
The attached table in Annex A provides the figures for apprenticeship starts in Wolverhampton North East constituency for each month since changes were made to apprenticeship funding from May 2017, following the introduction of the levy.
Asked by: Emma Reynolds (Labour - Wycombe)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when he plans to publish a response to his Department's call for evidence on home education.
Answered by Anne Milton
The call for evidence closed on 2 July 2018 and responses are still being analysed. A formal government response document will be published in due course.