Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Vince Cable and Anne Milton

Monday 24th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Anne Milton]

We are determined to make the apprenticeship system work for small and medium-sized enterprises, and smaller businesses get 95% of their training costs paid. We will move smaller businesses on to the apprenticeship system: we want to do that well and smoothly to make sure that we make it work for them.

[Sir Vince Cable (Twickenham) (LD)]

Can the Minister explain why very good companies with generous apprenticeships and training schemes are making a net contribution to the Treasury through the levy scheme rather than being rewarded through tax relief or in other ways?

[Anne Milton]

Those decisions were made some time ago. They have enabled us to make sure that by 2020 spending on apprenticeships will have more than doubled since 2010.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Vince Cable and Anne Milton

Monday 12th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Anne Milton]

I had a wonderful visit to Kirklees College and I was impressed with all I saw there. It is important that young people have a grounding in English and maths. I know this is difficult for some young people, and we are doing a great deal to improve the teaching of maths. Where people have failed after all those years in school, we cannot just go on doing the same thing. We have the opportunity to offer functional skills, which offers those young people an alternative way of getting a good qualification in maths.

[Sir Vince Cable (Twickenham) (LD)]

A very successful Queen’s award-winning company in my constituency provides examinations and training standards throughout the world in contemporary music, but it cannot provide these apprenticeship standards in the UK because of the Government’s rigidity in not allowing them or providing them in industries with a lot of freelance workers. Can the Minister address that problem?

[Anne Milton]

Yes, I can. The right hon. Gentleman perhaps ought to know that I have continued contact with my fellow Ministers in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, because this issue is important. We are not being rigid. There are ways around this, and I had a recent meeting to discuss exactly this point. It is important for the industry to get together and talk to the Institute for Apprenticeships, because there are ways around this.