Oral Answers to Questions

Tommy Sheppard Excerpts

Tuesday 15th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I am glad the hon. Gentleman has raised the issue of the BGS, because although it was a good fee-earner for consultants, there is very little evidence to show that it helped businesses to grow. [Interruption.] There is little evidence that it was the best way to help those businesses. The best way to help businesses is to make sure that we continue to have a growing economy—our economy is growing faster than those of all our rivals—so one thing he can do is support our long-term economic plan. We are also providing funding to 39 local enterprise partnerships—all the LEPs—through growth hubs, which they can use for localised support, including export opportunities.

[Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)]

6. What assessment he has made of the potential cost to businesses of implementation of the apprenticeships levy.

[The Minister for Skills (Nick Boles)]

Employers with a payroll bill of more than £3 million a year will be required to pay the new apprenticeship levy. It will raise £3 billion in 2019-20 to support apprenticeship training throughout the UK, including in Scotland.

[Tommy Sheppard]

We do, of course, hope that the apprenticeship levy will provide the same opportunities for young people south of the border as the 25,000 who started a modern apprenticeship in Scotland this year have. Is the Minister aware of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers’ concerns that the number of small and medium-sized enterprises affected by the levy is likely to be much greater than originally thought? Will he give an undertaking to provide clear and early guidance to those, well in advance of implementation?

[Nick Boles]

I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman is proud of the 25,000 modern apprenticeship starts in Scotland, just as we are proud of the half a million starts we have had in the past year in England. This would suggest to me that we can both take pride in our commitment to apprenticeships. I hope he will welcome the fact that the apprenticeship levy will be generating resources, some of which will pass to Scotland to enable it to fund what I hope will be a dramatic expansion in the number of its apprenticeships.