Apprenticeships
Gordon Marsden Excerpts(9 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)
I congratulate my Front-Bench colleagues on tabling the motion and focusing on 19 to 24-year-olds. When I had the honour to serve on the Front Bench, one of the things I took to it from my experience in Blackpool was that 19 to 24-year-olds were a key group that must not be left out of the process. Many in that age group have missed out on chances, perhaps because of disability, caring responsibilities, lifestyle or family disruption, but theirs is a key group for progression. There is certainly good practice in respect of that age range. I think of the “build up” programme in Blackpool college, which brings many apprentices into construction; the Lancashire apprenticeships scheme; and the skills and jobs fair I held last year involving 300 young people and 40 to 50 business participants.
As we have seen today, however, the Government were slow to match their rhetoric on 19 to 24-year-olds with the statistics. Why are they failing? In part, they are failing because they made such a disastrous mistake on traineeships. Traineeships were first mooted in 2012 by the Deputy Prime Minister. The idea was dawdled over for 18 months, and then became part of a long wrangle between the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills over the definition of benefits. It had no marketing budget and no proper sell to colleges, and there was a continued failure to consult employers, as we see even today in comments in FE Week. The 19 to 24 age group needs to be encouraged.
This is a Government who, while lauding apprenticeships in the round, have hindered the potential to access them in detail. This perspective has constantly been undermined, as we have heard, by the lack of co-operation from the Department for Education, not least in relation to the shambles of careers advice. This Government have commissioned good reports from business people such as Doug Richard and Jason Holt, but then failed to act quickly or effectively on them. They have not listened to what businesses and business organisations have said—and none more so than on the policies of procurement, which we introduced in government with some wonderful examples such as Crossrail.
We have commissioned a trio of reports on FE, skills and apprenticeships, and we have recognised the need for mechanisms to secure a critical step change in the take-up of apprenticeships by small and medium-sized enterprises. As I pointed out when I spoke at Training 2000 at Bolton in 2012, greater connections with the supply chain about training and other things are all key mechanisms to getting things across to benefit 19 to 24-year-olds.
That is why in our devolution proposals we talk specifically about skills and apprenticeships. They offer a key role not just for local councils, but for unions and union learning fund people. In that process there must be a key role for apprenticeships in the service and creative sectors, as well as in logistics and transport. We are going to have infrastructure projects that will produce £50 billion of spend over the next few years. We need to make sure that significant numbers of apprenticeships come from that, rather than having the record of hype and disconnect between BIS and DFE, which has too often blotted out this Government’s copybook on skills, training and apprenticeships. We need a strategy of progression, which the Opposition Front-Bench team are taking forward.
Oral Answers to Questions
Gordon Marsden Excerpts(9 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
The ingenuity of the hon. Gentleman is matched only by the generosity of the Chair in affording him that opportunity. I am sure that he is keenly conscious of that.
Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)
6. What guidance her Department issues to schools, colleges and other educational institutions on identifying young carers.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Edward Timpson)
Since 2011 we have worked with the Children’s Society and the Carers Trust to develop good practice materials for schools in order to increase teachers’ awareness of issues affecting young carers, including those relating to identification. In preparation for the introduction of the new young carers duty this April, we are planning to invite bids for the development of further materials to help school staff to understand and respond better to the needs of young carers.
Mr Marsden
We have a fantastic branch of the Carers Trust in Blackpool and Fylde. I have worked with the trust and seen its young carers project over the last eight years, and last year I saw an inspirational presentation by Lauren Codling, its young carers champion. Given that the trust has identified 450 young carers and the last Blackpool census revealed the existence of more than 1,000, the trust believes that a statutory duty is urgently required to help young carers, schools and colleges to do things that they could and should be doing. There are good links between our college and Blackpool council, but the carers group has spoken to Ofsted about inspections only once in the last eight years. Looked-after children benefit from a statutory duty; why should not young carers do so as well?
Mr Timpson
I am aware of the superb work that is done by the Blackpool carers centre in helping young carers, many of whom are coping with parents with addictions. The identification of those carers, and the support that we give them, are vital to ensuring that they have the childhood that they deserve, at the same time as taking on a role that is often beyond their years. That is why we have introduced the new duty, and why we are working closely with charities in Blackpool and in Cheshire East—where I have also met young carers—to ensure that they continue to receive the support that we need. However, when we inspect those services, we need to be confident that the outcomes for young carers are measured in a way that demonstrates that the duty that we have introduced is having a discernible effect, and we continue to pay attention to that.
Infant Class Sizes
Gordon Marsden Excerpts(9 years, 8 months ago)
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Tristram Hunt
I could repeat the facts about the Labour party’s building programme in office. Between 1997 and 2007, Labour built more than 1,100 new schools, the vast majority being primary schools. I am very happy to stand by our record in office of raising standards and providing places.
Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, pointing out the consequences on the ground of this misallocation on funds. On that point, does my hon. Friend agree that my constituents in Blackpool, where the number of infants in large classes has risen by 300% since 2010, are now suffering a double whammy, not just from that but from the extra pressure of transients that seaside and coastal towns have? That can be seen in all of these figures—Portsmouth up 250%, Medway 415%, Plymouth 600%. Are not this Tory Government and their coalition allies failing seaside and coastal towns in this respect?
Tristram Hunt
My hon. Friend is exactly right. The challenge facing seaside towns is often particularly acute in the case of educational disadvantage, so it is absolutely right that we focus on smaller class sizes. It is absolutely right that young people coming into class with lower literacy levels have a good working environment in which to succeed, particularly in the early years.
Labour will tell every parent who is angry that their infant is being educated in classes of well over 30 that the fault lies with the Government’s ideological determination to pour money into the free schools programme. By September last year, the Government had spent £241 million on free schools in areas with no shortage of school places. The Hawthorne’s free school in Bootle was built in an area with no shortage of school places and now faces falling rolls, yet despite being judged inadequate it has received nearly £850,000 in extra “start-up” cash from the Government. Money is spent on adding extra places in areas with a surplus of places, while it is withdrawn from areas of need.
Nicky Morgan
I respect the hon. Gentleman very much and enjoyed working with him when we were Whips on opposite sides of the House, but I do not recognise those figures. Seven out of 10 free schools that are currently open are in areas of basic need and eight out of 10 free schools that are planned to open will be in areas of basic need. Free schools are a response to the need for places and to the demands of parents and teachers for more good schools in a local area.
Nicky Morgan
No, I am going to make some progress.
I have set out the record of this Government. Let me compare it to that of the Labour party. It took four years for Labour to open the first 27 academies, seven years to open the first 133 academies, and five years to open just 15 city technology colleges. I am a generous person, so I can see that not everything Labour did was wrong. There were some good initiatives. Some Labour Members understood and even helped to inspire the academy and free school programme that this Government have made such a success. Let me make it clear that, unlike the shadow Secretary of State, who has spent the past 11 months distancing himself from the policies of those brave reformers in the Labour party who came before him, I will make no apologies for the work of my predecessor, who was one of the most successful, passionate and committed education reformers of the 21st century.
We could have a genuine debate about some of those things. Indeed, I am sure we would all be fascinated to know the latest views of the shadow Secretary of State, given how often they change. He has flip-flopped from free schools being a
“vanity project for yummy mummies”
which he said on 18 May 2010, to 13 October last year when he apologised for that description and said:
“I regret those comments because I think any parents, be they yummy mummies or faddy daddies, involved in the education of their children is great”
He also said that he would put “rocket boosters” under parents who wanted to set up schools, but two days later he U-turned again, describing free schools as a “dangerous ideological experiment”. Which one is it? His position is completely inexplicable.
Oral Answers to Questions
Gordon Marsden Excerpts(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
15. What steps he plans to take to improve vocational education.
Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)
16. What steps he plans to take to improve vocational education.
The Minister for Skills and Enterprise (Matthew Hancock)
Driving up the rigour and responsiveness of vocational education is a critical part of this Government’s mission to give everyone the education they need to fulfil their potential.
Matthew Hancock
The first thing I would say is that we have ameliorated the change so that no institution will lose more than 2% in the coming financial year. The second thing I would say is that we had to make this change because of the mess left in the public finances by the Labour party. [Interruption.] Labour Members do not like it, but it is the truth, and until they get used to admitting their fault, nobody will trust them with the economy again.
Mr Marsden
Which does the Minister think causes most damage to vocational education in Blackpool—his 17.5% cut in college funding, which is capped for only one year at 2%, or his abject failure to promote or offer any properly financially supported traineeships for young people?
Matthew Hancock
Of course, there would not be traineeships were it not for this Government. I would say that the most damaging thing to young people’s futures is a Labour Government.
Teaching Quality
Gordon Marsden Excerpts(10 years, 3 months ago)
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Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House believes that no school system can surpass the quality of its teachers; and therefore resolves that all teachers in all state-funded schools should be qualified or working towards Qualified Teacher Status, be undertaking ongoing continuing professional development and have their skills and knowledge re-validated throughout their careers in order to support them to excel in the classroom, to improve learning outcomes for all children in all schools, to uphold discipline in the classroom, to tailor their teaching to children with special educational needs and to close the attainment gap between disadvantaged children and their peers.
The motion—which flows on from those very powerful words of the Secretary of State for International Development about the power and purpose of education—begins with a clear statement of principles that were first enunciated by Sir Michael Barber.
This should be a moment when—just as in the previous debate—the House comes together, to extol the virtues of a highly qualified, self-motivating and dedicated teaching profession. It should be a moment when we undertake a shared commitment to give teachers the best possible training, so that we equip them properly for the demands of the classroom, and it should be a moment when we unite in praising all the hard work that teachers and head teachers do on a daily basis, while also acknowledging that we currently have one of the best teaching cohorts that the country has ever seen. I see the Secretary of State nodding in agreement and I hope that when he steps up to the Dispatch Box he will acknowledge the last Labour Government’s role in delivering that cohort and in raising teaching standards. We know of his enthusiasm for debating the past. Today should be the perfect opportunity—
Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way so early in his speech. Does he agree that it is curious that we have a Secretary of State who wants to micro-manage discussion of the first world war but is not prioritising continuing professional development of teachers who might be able to instruct their pupils rather better?
Tristram Hunt
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, which leads me perfectly on to my first point, which is about education focusing on the professionalism of the teacher in the classroom, rather than being micro-managed from Whitehall. It was the Prime Minister himself who in 2010 said—[Interruption.] I would have thought that Conservative Members would like to listen to the words of the Prime Minister. He said:
“The quality of a teacher is the single most important factor in a child's educational progress.”
Moreover, he said,
“children with the best teachers”
learn
“four times as fast”
as those taught by the least effective. He was absolutely right. He also offered a solution that drew on international evidence and best practice:
“Finland, Singapore and South Korea have the most highly qualified teachers, and also some of the best education systems in the world because they have deliberately made teaching a high prestige profession.”
Michael Gove
That is probably the best intervention we have had for some time on the question of education, because it actually relates to what is taught. I believe that we need proper grammatical rules in order to ensure that words are used with precision. Like all bodies of knowledge, however, it evolves over time. There is no tension between recognising that there are certain grammatical rules and that they change, in the same way as there is no tension between recognising that there are certain literary works that should always be in the canon and that over time they change. For example, Macpherson’s “Ossian” is out of the canon, but Burns will always be in.
Mr Marsden
The Secretary of State talked about sloppy language and various other things. Would he care to define for the House the meaning of the words he just used: “top teachers from our universities”?
Michael Gove
I said, “teachers from our top universities”. Of course, I refer to Oxford university as one of our top universities, but perhaps I should have included Cambridge and Imperial, or Aberdeen and Edinburgh for that matter—there are many. The point I am making is that the Opposition cannot have it both ways. They cannot say that we want teaching to be an elite profession and then, when we congratulate those people from elite institutions who go into teaching, decry us for somehow being snobbish. I have taken the hon. Gentleman’s point. In fact, I have expanded it into a logical argument, only subsequently to refute it.
Oral Answers to Questions
Gordon Marsden Excerpts(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Matthew Hancock
It is very good news that youth unemployment is falling—there was a 20,000 fall announced yesterday—but it is still too high, and there is still much more to do. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s work, and the work of others across the House, to make sure that apprenticeships and traineeships are available in future to help with that.
Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)
Does not the Minister’s rhetoric on apprenticeships hit the buffers in reality? No amount of his crowing or tweeting alters the latest facts: there is a 13% drop in 16 to 18-year-olds starting apprenticeships, and a 6% drop across the board. He has failed to take up our plans to create thousands of new apprenticeships via Government procurement, and he has also failed to get a deal with Department for Work and Pensions Ministers. The Association of Colleges said yesterday that 14 to 19-year-olds taking up his new traineeships, so that they can move on to apprenticeships, are not likely to have any money to live on. When will he stop dithering and start delivering?
Matthew Hancock
We are delivering the new traineeships from next month. Given the need, after years of inaction, to bring together support for work experience and skills for those approaching the job market, I would have thought that the hon. Gentleman would welcome that. I would have thought that the Opposition would have supported the rise in the number of apprenticeships to record levels since the election.
Oral Answers to Questions
Gordon Marsden Excerpts(11 years, 1 month ago)
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Matthew Hancock
That is an important point. The TechBacc aims to do precisely what the right hon. Gentleman suggests, alongside making apprenticeships the new norm. We want to make clear the progression routes that people can take to get into the career that they want. I am happy to look at any other steps we can take, but simplification is the order of the day.
Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)
Does the Minister realise that success in vocational education is a game of two halves? We will get the expansion in quality apprenticeships we need only if he has prepared the ground, which means proper support for vocational education in schools, on which the Government are failing. The latest research from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development shows that parents remain doubtful. Therefore, in his second day job as a Minister in the Department for Education, will he restore key stage 4 work experience and dedicated funding for face-to-face guidance, for which half the people surveyed by the CIPD and the employers I speak to are crying out?
Matthew Hancock
We are introducing work experience as part of the study programmes in sixth forms and for 16 to 18-year-olds. The new duty on schools to provide independent and impartial advice is an important step we have taken from this summer.
Apprenticeships
Gordon Marsden Excerpts(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for his statement.
In one respect at least, the Government have dealt comprehensively with the Richard review: they have comprehensively fudged or ignored most of his main recommendations. It reminds me of the old saying from the Clerk in the Table Office that one will always get a reply from Ministers, but not always an answer. I have been through the 10 specific recommendations that Doug Richard laid out in his report on apprenticeships. With the exception of the redefinition of the apprenticeship outcomes and the other matters that the Minister mentioned in that respect, all of which we agree with and welcome, I would give his answers two and a half out of 10 or possibly three. [Interruption.] Government Members should compare forensically the recommendations and what the Government have said.
It would be interesting to hear what Mr Richard makes of the Government’s response to his report. Ministers and their advisers were clearly too nervous to obtain or include any comment from him in their press release. They also completely omitted any reference to Mr Richard’s central recommendation on incentives for employers to invest in apprenticeship training.
There is a depressing pattern in the Government’s responses to new ideas for apprenticeships. They pat their advisers on the head, but ignore the main conclusions of the reviews that they have set up. They ignored Jason Holt’s advice last year on boosting apprenticeships with small and medium-sized enterprises, such as the need for impartial face-to-face careers guidance for young people. They voted here on Tuesday against the proposal of the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee to use public procurement to boost apprenticeship numbers. Now they have sidelined the key recommendation of Doug Richard’s report, again ignoring the need for a proper programme of advice and work experience in schools.
I want to ask the Minister the following questions. One of the central points of Doug Richard’s report was the need to incentivise employers’ funding. Does the Minister see the recommendations on funding made by Doug Richard and Lord Heseltine as complementary? What view does Mr Richard take of that?
The Government response says only that they are moving towards improving the attainment of level 2 functional maths and English. Why have they ignored Richard’s key recommendation that people should have level 2 functional maths and English before the completion of an apprenticeship? Will the Minister do anything to introduce work-based learning to support entry to employment and apprenticeships, as recommended by Mr Richard? Will he confirm that the Secretary of State for Education will provide dedicated funding for face-to-face guidance in schools to deliver improved awareness of apprenticeships among students and parents, as Mr Richard recommended? What measures will he take to support smaller businesses engaging with the apprenticeship system, and what is the timetable for that? How will the Government implement the new definition of apprenticeships as recommended by Mr Richard, and when will they do that? Finally, why have they ignored Doug Richard’s proposal to make some off-site learning mandatory?
The Government have ignored the key point with which Mr Richard began his recommendations. He said:
“It is important to stress that the different elements must be taken collectively: they are interlinked and the system will only make sense and be deliverable if all the elements are adopted as a whole”.
The Skills Minister has failed completely in his second day job at the Department for Education to reanimate the dead hand of the Secretary of State, whose fingers are all over this report on the failures of apprenticeships, failure to deliver work experience, and failure to make changes to guidance. No wonder employers and business organisations are wringing their hands over the Minister’s failure to take up fresh proposals from Holt and Richard. It is just as well that the Labour party has set up a skills taskforce that will come forward with fresh ideas to deliver the step changes that employers need, and address the crucial issues raised by Holt and Richard, which the Government have shown they are ignoring.
Matthew Hancock
I do not know whether the shadow Minister turned up after I answered several of the questions that he has asked. Given that the Government commissioned and welcomed this report, and put in place a consultation on the implementation of the principles within, I do not know how they can be ducking that report. If a report is published, and the Government publish a response setting out how they will take forward its recommendations, that is very much taking on that report and its recommendations, not the contrary.
On the specific questions, I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was present when I said that employers will be given greater control of funding to ensure that it is directed where it most adds value, and that costs will be shared. That is the answer to his specific question on funding. We agree with the principles, we are working and consulting on the options, and we will come forward with a full implementation plan in the autumn.
On information, advice and guidance, it is, of course, vital that schools give independent and impartial careers advice, and we are implementing that statutory duty. On small businesses, the whole point behind making the funding co-funded by and flowing through businesses, is to make it easier for businesses to access that funding. The brutal fact is that at the moment, more than half of apprenticeships are in small and medium-sized businesses.
The biggest disappointment is that on a set of reforms that will improve and strengthen the quality of apprenticeships, there was not one positive word from the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman. I have no doubt that we will hear positive words from elsewhere in the Chamber about the value of apprenticeships and how they help everybody reach their potential, but there was not a single positive word from the Opposition.
Apprenticeships
Gordon Marsden Excerpts(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House notes National Apprenticeship Week, established by the previous Government, and held from 11 to 15 March 2013, which celebrates the value of apprenticeships, particularly in providing opportunities and developing skills; further notes the need to increase apprenticeship places; and therefore resolves that the Government uses the billions of pounds committed to public procurement to boost apprenticeships by requiring firms winning public contracts worth over £1 million to offer apprenticeship opportunities, implementing the recommendation of the Fifth Report of the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, HC 83, on Apprenticeships.
It is a pleasure and honour for me as shadow Minister responsible for apprenticeships to open this debate in national apprenticeship week. Back in 2008, my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr Denham), then the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills, launched apprenticeship week as a vehicle to promote the real and valuable opportunities that apprenticeships offer. It is a tribute to him that national apprenticeship week has since become a central part of the employment and skills calendar.
This is a week in which excellence and aspiration in learning, and acquiring skills and trades in areas as diverse as engineering, construction, the hospitality industry, joinery, accountancy, and health and social care, are showcased and celebrated. To see so many MPs from all sides of the House getting involved and celebrating apprenticeship achievements in their constituencies is a great thing. We must remember, however, that apprenticeships did not emerge from a blank canvas in 2010, as some Government Members have occasionally implied.
When Labour came to government in 1997 the apprenticeship programme was floundering. We resurrected that historic badge of excellence and made it fit for purpose in the 21st century. Under the previous Labour Government, the number of apprenticeships more than quadrupled. National apprenticeship week was launched to give expanded life chances and skills a focus for recognition and celebration, and the Labour Government also set up the National Apprenticeship Service to drive the project all year round.
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
If it was all going so swimmingly under the previous Government, why in a period of continued economic growth did youth unemployment double and the number of those not in education, employment or training increase year on year?
Mr Marsden
The hon. Gentleman was obviously not listening to what I said because the Labour Government quadrupled the number of apprenticeships in that period. Let us be mature and grown-up about this: no Government of any persuasion have an exact monopoly of success or failure in any particular area. What matters are the intentions that are brought to the party, and our intentions were very strong and solid.
Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that we can all learn a lot from companies such as Airbus, which has trained thousands of apprentices over 30 years at both Broughton and Filton? Importantly, it has trained people in bad economic years as well as good. We need a consistent approach to apprenticeships, not the stop-start approach that we have seen over many years.
Mr Marsden
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. Indeed, I would go further and say that a number of large companies—BAE Systems, for example, where I was last Thursday—have led the way on this issue including with their supply chain. It remains to be seen whether the Government take that message across a broader palette.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
My hon. Friend and I worked together on skills and apprenticeships for many years and, like me, he will know that the tragedy of our economy is that only about 10% of employers take on apprentices. If we could get the other 90% to take on an apprentice, we could really do something for young people in this country.
Mr Marsden
I had the enormous pleasure of serving under my hon. Friend when he was the Chair of the Children, Schools and Families Committee, and he has probably taught me as much as anyone in this House on this subject. He is absolutely right and he hits the nail on the head: a step-change in the number of apprenticeships is central. It is the focus of our motion.
We resurrected that historic badge of excellence, but this is not a matter for party politics. When the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes) was the Minister with responsibility for apprenticeships, he spoke movingly about what he had learned about the value of the skills of hand and eye from his father. I, too, saw those skills through the working life of my father as an engineer. When he was apprenticed at the age of 14 to the engineering company Crossley Brothers in Manchester just before the second world war, my grandfather told him, “Now Crossleys has taken you on, you will have a job for life.”
Today’s apprentices often face very different challenges and prospects, because many young people can expect to go through half a dozen job or career changes in their lifetime, some probably not even thought of when they start their apprenticeship. That means it is critical to get the mix of bespoke and portable skills right at the apprenticeship stage; and that the range, content and quality remain relevant to the businesses and local economies in which they are embedded. These are challenging issues that demand a co-ordinated and hands-on approach from government, as well as from businesses and educators.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
On what can be done at a local level to celebrate apprenticeships week, I am having a jobs and apprenticeships fair in Bishop Auckland on Friday. I expect 100 jobs and apprenticeships to be available to young people. Does my hon. Friend agree that the background need is to get the economy moving? Unemployment in my constituency is still rising, and seven people are looking at every vacancy.
Mr Marsden
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Jobs and skills fairs give a sense of buzz and direction, but we need to look at the position of regional economies. That is a particular problem in the north-east, not least since the excellent lead given by One North East is no longer available.
Mr Marsden
I will make a bit more progress and then let the hon. Gentleman come in if he wishes.
As MPs, we rightly celebrate the individual successes we observe. I have seen it myself in the development of the 19-year-old women whom I took on in my office as an apprentice. She has come from the excellent Blackpool and Fylde college and is doing an NVQ3. I know that sense of engagement is shared by other parliamentary colleagues who have taken on apprentices, or who are in the process of doing so.
In my work inside and outside Westminster in the past year, I have seen the strength of diversity and quality in apprenticeships in the skillset schemes at the BBC’s MediaCity site and the food and hospitality apprentice achievements that People 1st celebrated here. Last week, I visited Hackney community college to hear about the new apprenticeship opportunities it is creating as a result of the Tech City developments, and in Lancashire, as I said, I talked to apprentices at BAE Systems’s engineering school, and at the defence company MBDA just outside Bolton. This Thursday, I will be handing out apprenticeships awards at—what better place? —Blackpool tower. Those experiences have reinforced—for me and, I think, for all of us—the need for a broad range of apprenticeship pathways that cover not just traditional manufacturing sectors, but professional and service sectors. The common denominator has to be quality.
Despite that good work—and that of other initiatives; we welcome the extra apprenticeships that Barclays has just announced—it cannot be the substitute for systematic broader government action. The take-up of apprenticeships remains challenging and, in some categories, dire. We have already seen the number of 16-to18-year-old apprenticeship starts fall by 9,200 in the first three months between August and October 2012, in comparison with the same period in 2011.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
Is my hon. Friend as shocked as I am to discover that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, with a staff of approximately 2,500, appears to employ only one apprentice under the age of 19? Would today not be a good day for the Minister to make an announcement that he will put that right, put his own house in order and set an example for everybody else?
Mr Marsden
We should never tempt providence, but I am sure the Minister has heard my hon. Friend’s remark, which I shall return to later.
The final figures for 2011-12 also show that the number of 16-to-18 apprenticeships has dropped in four of England’s nine regions, including by more than 2,000 in my own north-west region. The growth figures for other age groups—not least 19 to 24-year-olds, which is a crucial age when many, for whatever reason, have missed out first time around—are modest.
Mr Sheerman
I take a bipartisan approach to these things, but is not one worry the fact that it is difficult for people promoting apprenticeships to get into schools, many of which resist apprenticeships because they want to keep bums on seats in return for the financial reward? That is very common.
Mr Marsden
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe), my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) is telepathic, because I shall be returning to that point later.
The Government are fond of saying that they have created more than 500,000 apprenticeships, but less fond of saying that in axing Train to Gain they also axed more than 500,000 training places. Many of these additional apprenticeships are merely relabelled and transferred in-work provision from Train to Gain, as Doug Richard, the entrepreneur behind the Government’s commissioned report, confirmed last week and as has been shown by detailed analysis from the sector publication, FE Week, which the Skills Minister and I read with great relish every week.
Government statistics in the Richard review have borne that out. The proportion of apprenticeships that are in-work apprenticeships rose to 70% in 2012 in comparison with 48% in 2007, so the Government’s figure of 500,000 hangs entirely on the huge growth in post-25 apprenticeships. If significant numbers of these fall away as a result of an adverse reaction to the Government’s controversial FE loans system, the fragility of their much-trumpeted figure of 500,000 will be rapidly exposed.
Mr Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) (Lab)
Will my hon. Friend join me in congratulating Willmott Dixon, a developer and construction company in my constituency, on having just invested £1 million in a new apprenticeships college? It has already had the privilege of being visited by the shadow Secretary of State, who has seen the good work it does. Will he support that?
Mr Marsden
I will indeed support what my hon. Friend has said, and would add that Willmott Dixon, among other companies, has had some interesting things to say about the role that social value can play in apprenticeships and procurement.
Addressing not just fall-out at post-24, but the ability to fall in at 16 to 18 and 19 to 24 should be a crucial part of any Government apprenticeships strategy. That means exposing them to the world of work and work experience at a much earlier age; giving space and dedicated funding in the curriculum for independent, face-to-face career guidance on apprenticeships; and making space for vital work-related learning skills, as the Federation of Small Businesses said in its publication, “The Apprenticeship Journey”.
The Prime Minister said yesterday in Buckinghamshire that he wanted to make apprenticeships a first-choice career move, so perhaps he could have a word with the Secretary of State for Education, who appropriately is in his place, but who has studiously ignored and devalued the arguments for vocational careers advice made by business groups and, indeed, by his own small and medium-sized enterprises apprenticeships adviser, Jason Holt, in his report last August.
No wonder businesses are dismayed. When the Government removed compulsory work-related learning from the key stage 4 curriculum in 2012, the FSB said:
“We remain deeply concerned that without it many schools may fail to teach these vital skills.”
The Prime Minister also said yesterday rather airily that he wanted Britain to be more like Germany in its attitude to apprenticeships, so perhaps he, too, should listen to Ofsted’s chief inspector, Sir Michael Wilshaw, who has come back from looking at Germany’s apprenticeships system and told FE Week this week that Germany’s “very effective” apprenticeships system is supported
“with a greater focus on vocational training”
in schools “earlier on.” If we want the broadest spectrum of young people, including those not in education, employment or training, to be able to take up apprenticeships, we must give them a fair chance to get there. We and others have been urging for months the need for a proper pre-training route.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
My hon. Friend is making a strong speech. Perhaps the Prime Minister could take some lessons from Wales. I am proud to have ACT Training in my constituency, which is one of Wales’s largest apprenticeship training providers, training 5,000 apprentices last year, with a 90% completion rate. Will he join me in welcoming the announcement this afternoon by the Deputy Minister for Skills in the Welsh Labour Government? He has announced an additional £22 million of support over the next two years for apprenticeships, which is quite a contrast to the approach of the Government in this place.
Mr Marsden
That support is entirely welcome. Indeed, there might be more occasions when the current Government should look at examples from the devolved nations.
Ever since the Government admitted the need to guarantee that quality apprenticeships would have to be 12 months or longer, we have been pushing these points. That is the only way to ensure that social mobility and apprenticeship expansion can go hand in hand. However, the Government have dithered and dallied, and precious opportunities have been squandered for many young people. The traineeship consultation, which is welcome, was launched only at the beginning of this year, but now the Government have to spell out in detail how they will avoid it becoming a rerun of the youth training scheme of the 1980s, which merely recycled young people off the jobless figures.
The Labour party recognises, therefore, that we need a step change to expand apprenticeship opportunities for young people and to support smaller businesses to take part. That is why, this time last year in Blackpool, I laid out a series of apprenticeship initiatives from our Front-Bench team to do just that. They include Government expansion and encouragement of group training associations to aid smaller businesses and the promotion of best practice in buddying, with larger companies working with smaller ones in their supply chains to create apprenticeships, as well as a larger direct role for business and industry in creating and setting apprenticeship frameworks and direct involvement in careers advice and guidance.
Andrew Percy
I will not plug my jobs fair—which is taking place at 9.30 this Friday at the Vale of Ancholme school in Brigg—but one thing the shadow Minister has not mentioned is the important role of local government in supporting apprenticeships. I wonder whether he has had the opportunity to look at Conservative-run North Lincolnshire council, which created 60 apprenticeships last year and has this year put aside £250,000 to support local businesses in employing 120 apprentices.
Mr Marsden
I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has made what is not just a detailed point, but an important general point: that these things cannot simply be delivered and micro-managed in Whitehall. They need to be taken forward at the local and sub-regional level. He gave an example, and I welcome apprenticeships coming from councils of whatever political persuasion. I shall have a little more to say about that later.
Mr Marsden
I will take one more intervention from my hon. Friend and then I must make progress.
Mr Sheerman
Again, I am not trying to make party political points, but have we not all found that if we are to have apprenticeship champions, we have to locate them somewhere? Whether they are in local enterprise partnerships, chambers of commerce, local authorities, colleges or anywhere else, we have to have champions if we are to get the number of apprenticeships this country deserves.
Mr Marsden
My hon. Friend is quite right. When different places choose different champions in different sectors, the secret is getting them to co-operate with each other.
Last year we laid out all the measures I have set out in this debate, but the centrepiece is something that the Government could move to tomorrow if they wanted to: using the tens or even hundreds of billions of pounds of public procurement that come from Government contracts to create apprenticeships. That is the core of today’s motion. As far back as August 2011, we set out our stall, when the then shadow Business Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen, announced that we would require all companies bidding for Government contracts above £1 million to put in place a scheme to create apprenticeships before they could get them. That is an initiative to do much of the heavy lifting that we need to provide the step change, the exponential shift, in the sheer volume of apprenticeship numbers. Since then, his successor, my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna), has taken that proposal forward on every possible occasion, not only on the ground of the economic necessity for growth but as an ethical imperative. That is why, last week at the EEF, he outlined our position, which is that it is simply unacceptable that two thirds of larger employers are still not offering apprenticeships.
It was my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen who laid out the direction of travel for this initiative when we were in government. Along with my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle), he launched the official Office of Government Commerce guidance encouraging this approach. That Labour Government then proceeded with major projects such as the Kickstart housing scheme, launched by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), and Building Schools for the Future, as well as working with the contractors on the Olympic park, which resulted in the creation of thousands of new apprenticeship opportunities.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an important point. We have learned this week that young people in areas such as Tameside are now among those with the fewest opportunities to access the jobs market, yet it was Labour-controlled Tameside council, working with a Labour Government, that ensured that the contractors for schemes such as Building Schools for the Future took on apprenticeships as part of the Tameside Works First initiative.
Mr Marsden
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As a native Mancunian, I am well aware that over the past 20 to 25 years, the local councils in the Greater Manchester area have done splendid work in this respect.
I was talking about Building Schools for the Future and the contractors on the Olympic park. It is also sometimes forgotten that it was our party, in government, that ensured that skills and apprenticeships would be an integral part of the Crossrail project that we had announced. It was our party that put in place the tunnelling academy and laid the framework for a procurement strategy based on taking apprentices from the local London boroughs.
That is what we believe, but more than that, it is what a raft of other bodies believe as well. Most recently and significantly, the cross-party Business, Innovation and Skills Committee ended its 11-month inquiry into apprenticeships and, in its recent report, called on the Government to adopt such a scheme. The Committee argued that the Government should aim for the benchmark used by many leading businesses in the construction sector, including Kier, Wilmott Dixon and Laing, whereby for every £1 million spent by Government Departments and their agencies on public procurement, at least one new apprenticeship place should be created.
That sensible approach has already attracted many supporters. The Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians, the Association of Colleges, the National Union of Students, the North-East Federation of Small Businesses, the North-East chamber of commerce and many others endorsed the approach when it was set out by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) in her excellent private Member’s Bill last year. During the Select Committee sessions, organisations such as JTL and unionlearn also backed the procurement concept.
Despite all that, this Government continue to refuse to act. Their response to the Select Committee report cited rather vague unintended negative consequences as their excuse for ducking the issue. They said that they were
“currently working on guidance to encourage best practice amongst local authorities in relation to Apprenticeship conditions in construction contracts”.
Why has it taken them more than two and a half years to get to this point? After all, does not such a starting point already exist in the form of the OGC guidance that I referred to earlier? Why are the Government reinventing the wheel?
It has also been suggested that civil servants fear that they could fall foul of EU procurement rules. The Minister’s illustrious predecessor, the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings, ruefully admitted to the Select Committee last May that he felt that the Government could be more creative in their use of procurement. That position has also been confirmed by the House of Commons Library, which points out that the European Commission has a guidance note entitled “Buying Social: a Guide to Taking Account of Social Considerations in Public Procurement.” That guidance suggests that promoting “employment opportunities”, “decent work” and access to training can be taken into account. Those guidelines are surely compatible with promoting apprenticeships.
Rehman Chishti
Will the shadow Minister join me in paying tribute to Medway council, which has managed to obtain money from Europe to fund up to 500 apprenticeships under the success scheme?
Mr Marsden
I am delighted to do so. That is another indication that Conservatives down in Kent seem to do things rather differently from Conservatives in Government.
As I was saying, could it be—perish the thought—that some Ministers are simply using European Union law as a convenient smokescreen to disguise their reluctance to support this kind of active, intelligent Government initiative? If that is the case, what do they think that our French or German counterparts would do? Do they think that they would allow arcane, untested notions of EU law to prevent them from expanding apprenticeships, given the dire unemployment rates among young people that exist under this Government? Why, if that is the case, does one of the Government’s own Departments claim to be following an approach much like ours?
Since July 2011, the Department for Work and Pensions has been operating its apprenticeships and skills requirement contract schedule, which requires:
“The Contractor shall and shall procure that its Sub-contractors shall take all reasonable steps to ensure that 5% of their employees are on a formal apprenticeship programme.”
The apprenticeships Minister himself praised the DWP initiative in a recent House of Commons response. That is all well and good, but if the initiative is such a good idea, why have the Government not extended it to other Departments? Why has the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, as the lead Department for apprenticeships, not taken matters any further in the 20 months since the launch of that initiative? Why have the Cabinet Office, the Deputy Prime Minister, and even the occupants of No. 10—who waxed eloquent yesterday about the value of apprenticeships being the new norm—done nothing? That is not exactly the equivalent of Churchill’s “action this day”. Are this Government so supine, so conflicted and so hung up that they prefer taking away people’s employment rights to creating career opportunities for them? Does it not boil down to the resistance of many, if not all, in the Tory-led coalition to any active, intelligent role for Government which would require them to strain every sinew to promote economic growth and expand young people’s life chances?
The Government cannot and should not micro-manage, but they must expand apprenticeship places more vigorously and systematically than they are at present. That is central to what we need to achieve as a country so that we can compete and thrive in the 21st-century world. It is no wonder that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition made the expansion of apprenticeships with employers and other stakeholders, and the introduction of the “tech bacc”, the central focus in his speech to the Labour party conference last year. He has also spelt out the way in which a future Labour Government could apply the same criterion to major infrastructure projects such as High Speed 2, with the objective of creating at least 33,000 additional apprenticeships.
We can see how the same formula could be applied directly elsewhere, and in other Departments beside the DWP. For example, there are four existing road projects announced by the Department for Transport—work on the A160 and A180 in Immingham, on the M6 in the west midlands, on the M3 in Surrey, and on the M275 in Portsmouth—with a combined contract value of more than £400 million, from which hundreds of apprenticeship places could be created. If the Government really want to expand apprenticeships, why will they not practise what they preach and implement these sensible proposals? After all, what better spur can there be for the two thirds of businesses that still do not offer apprenticeships than the knowledge that they are crucial to the Government, and also crucial to their working with the Government?
As Members have said, we need to see Government Departments themselves opening up and offering more apprenticeships. The most recent data available to us on BIS are those mentioned earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak. Spurred by the cogent arguments advanced repeatedly over the past year by my colleague in the other place, Lord Adonis, the Government should be introducing an apprenticeship fast stream for the civil service. Ministers have now announced belatedly that they will be running such a scheme, but we are still waiting to hear—and it would be interesting if we could hear today—just how committed to it individual Departments will be. The Cabinet Office, for example, was far from forthcoming when I asked parliamentary questions about this earlier this year. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition summed the position up perfectly in an article at the end of January in which he said:
“Whitehall takes 500 of the brightest graduates from our top universities every year and fast-tracks their careers on good salaries. Let’s give the same opportunities to youngsters who are ready to knuckle down and learn on the job, in tough apprenticeship schemes. It should start in the offices of ministers in the Government.”
We believe that any new apprenticeships created via this procurement route need to be high quality, a point echoed by the Doug Richard review recommendations.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. I am thinking in particular about the 16 to 18-year-olds in Oldham who are not in education, employment or training; the level there is more than 8.6%, which is well above the regional average. We have seen so many Government U-turns in the past few weeks, so is he hoping that they might do a U-turn on this issue, too?
Mr Marsden
We wait with bated breath to see what might occur in the Budget, and I hope that the Skills Minister might use his good offices with the Chancellor in that respect.
Labour Members believe that this apprenticeship route has to be a high-quality one. We have to have that because we have had problems in the past with the duration of apprenticeships, and it took some time for the Government to move on that. These issues of quality are being addressed by our Labour skills taskforce. It is taking forward details of our proposals, which the Leader of the Opposition announced last autumn, drawing on the practical experience of business, the further education sector and elsewhere. That is why we are seeking not only to boost the number of apprenticeship places available, but to address the situation pre-18 by introducing a new technical baccalaureate.
While the Government have been dithering nationally about how to expand apprenticeships and ignoring procurement policies, Labour local authorities have been leading the way. A number of Labour-run authorities are going ahead with public procurement to create new apprenticeships for young local people eager for those opportunities. For example, Sheffield city council has identified 233 additional apprenticeships that it can create via public procurement where it has set its requirements at £100,000. Sandwell’s council has done something similar, aiming to create just under 200 apprenticeships through public procurement in the next three years. Other councils, such as my local authority in Blackpool, are boosting numbers in other innovative ways. It already has 48 apprentices on the books, but my local council is working with other local public sector bodies, such as the police force and the NHS, to create shared apprenticeships across those bodies. One could add to that other Labour councils such as those in Reading and Plymouth that are actively engaging with local businesses to boost apprenticeship opportunities across their boroughs, as well as the city skills hubs of Manchester and Leeds.
What is telling about that story of activity in local government is that, as we have heard, even Conservative-run local authorities realise the merits of that approach. For example, Kent county council has put in place criteria whose details closely mirror ours: procurement for all contracts worth more than £1 million should create at least one additional apprenticeship place. Northamptonshire county council has also put in place mandatory requirements on all contracts over the value of £2 million. In addition, there are those in the Prime Minister’s own parliamentary party who have argued that something has to be done, with perhaps the sharpest example being the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon). Last year, that redoubtable Member made similar suggestions that government should be using public procurement to boost apprenticeships.
That shows the range of consensus on the need to act now. It is a consensus that has been built by a determination to do something to kick-start us out of a dire, flatlining economic situation, which has the potential to put thousands of young people at risk. The Opposition are advocating a useful change that has the potential to transform the life chances of thousands of young people. It offers them the opportunities they are crying out for, and sends a clear message to business that apprenticeships matter and add real value to a firm. If we will the ends, we must will the means. It is time for the Government to stop tying themselves in tortuous knots when they are put on the spot by the wise words of the Select Committee.
The Skills Minister has repeatedly said that apprenticeships are at the heart of the Government’s skills strategy. As many of his Tory colleagues in local government agree with our approach, why does he not take this modest proposal forward? He has the opportunity. We have a Department for Business, Innovation and Skills that already has a Minister with two brains and a Secretary of State in two minds about ring-fenced funding and economic growth. Now I wait with bated breath to see whether the Under-Secretary of State for Skills will be able to say the right thing for his two Departments this afternoon.
Abraham Lincoln—or perhaps it was Daniel Day-Lewis—famously said that when
“the occasion is piled high with difficulty”
we must rise to it, and
“As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew.”
That is our proposal today. When our economy and this Government’s strategy are flatlining, we must act anew. A public procurement policy for apprenticeships would start to transform the numbers and the life chances of tens of thousands of young people. It makes economic sense, but it is also the right thing to do. We believe in a one nation Britain with not only social cohesion and fairness but economic cohesion, in which apprenticeships have a firm stake. That is why we have put the proposal centre stage today and that is why I am proud to move the motion.
Matthew Hancock
I cannot, I am afraid; I have virtually no time left.
The hon. Members for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden), for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), for Bradford East (Mr Ward), for North Tyneside (Mrs Glindon) and for Copeland (Mr Reed) talked about the value of apprenticeships. In particular, the hon. Member for Copeland spoke powerfully about how apprenticeships now reflect the modern economy and are spreading into relatively new areas of the economy. All this fits the argument made by the Prime Minister yesterday that there should be a new norm in our country whereby school leavers go to university or into an apprenticeship so that we have a high-skilled economy and a high-skilled work force, not only so that every individual can reach their potential—their personal best—but so that our economy can compete in the global race. I am glad to see cross-party consensus on the importance of the global race.
The hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) mentioned many things; I was intrigued by her speech. I want to pick out her mention of the world skills competition, which is a brilliant, fascinating and exciting competition that everybody should watch; certainly, I thoroughly enjoyed watching it.
Members have mentioned the need to increase the number of apprenticeships and I can announce that, in addition to the three apprentices in my private offices, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills will advertise tomorrow for three further apprentices in our communications department. The numbers are going up and up.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Gordon Birtwistle) and the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon), have said, while we and many local authorities are broadly supportive of and, indeed, leading on procurement apprenticeships, such as those with Crossrail, I am concerned that the motion is defective, because it appears to call on the Government to exceed their legal powers. Given my assurances, I hope that the Opposition will not push for a vote.
Mr Marsden
The motion states that the Government should use
“the billions of pounds committed to public procurement”,
but our interpretation is that that does not automatically mean procurement in local government, although we believe that the Government have an important role to play in promoting that. I do not understand why the Minister thinks that the motion is defective.
Matthew Hancock
The phrase “public procurement” could easily be interpreted as including procurement in local government, national Government and agencies. The motion was tabled only late last night and it would not be advisable for the House of Commons to vote for something that might not be legal. I am afraid that we must resist the motion, but I hope that, given our reassurances, we can all agree on the need for procurement where possible and for it to represent good value for money. I hope there will not be a vote.
Finally, many Members, including the hon. Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans), mentioned the importance of increased quality and employer focus. Members discussed the cross-party desire for parity of esteem among vocational routes, apprenticeships and universities. It is my passionate belief that parity of esteem will come from parity of quality. We need to increase quality throughout the apprenticeship system so that all apprentices can be as good as the very best at MBDA, Morrisons and Rolls-Royce, which have been mentioned by many Members.
We have taken steps to increase quality: we have insisted that people need to continue with English and maths if they do not have a C grade at GCSE, and have said that there needs to be a minimum of a year in almost all circumstances and a job as part of an apprenticeship. The removal of programme-led apprenticeships has taken out 18,000 apprenticeship places, which is a far higher number than that for the decrease in apprenticeships for 16 to 19-year-olds over the past year. Under the previous Government some apprenticeships did not involve a job, so apprentices were training with no prospect of a job, and astonishingly, some apprenticeships involved jobs without training. At their heart, apprenticeships are about earning and learning at the same time. Increasing quality is vital and I will not apologise for that.
We will respond to the Richard review and are in favour of rigorous apprenticeships that are responsive to employers’ needs. We want to ensure a new norm that gives everyone a good opportunity to reach their potential. We should not use a target to push people into university when it may be best for them to go into an apprenticeship. Instead, let us provide the best possible opportunities for young people, through university and apprenticeships, and a ladder of progression from level 2 to levels 3, 4 and beyond to new areas of the economy, including legal services and accountancy, as well as the more traditional areas of engineering and construction. In that way, we can ensure that there is the potential for everybody to succeed.
Oral Answers to Questions
Gordon Marsden Excerpts(11 years, 3 months ago)
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Matthew Hancock
I would be pleased to support Johnson Matthey and the work it is doing to expand the number of people in apprenticeships, and indeed to increase the quality of apprenticeships. I know that the apprenticeships it offers are of high quality and it is well worth raising awareness of that and getting involved.
Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)
The Government’s latest figures show that apprenticeship starts for young people under 19 are down by 15%, and Ministers are complacent about the risks to apprenticeships for over 24-year-olds from their further education loan plans. It is obvious that we urgently need a game- changer for apprenticeships, so why is the Minister still ignoring what the Opposition and now the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee have called for: Government procurement contracts, not least on projects such as high-speed rail, to ensure that companies sign up thousands of new apprenticeships in order to win those contracts?
Matthew Hancock
The shadow Minister does rather better when we take politics out of apprenticeships, not least because there has been a record number of apprenticeship starts over the past year. On HS2, I say only that Crossrail—the largest construction project in Europe and signed off by this Government—has precisely the sort of arrangement for which he asks.