Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of ensuring that funding levels for apprenticeships could not be negatively affected by macro-economic trends in wage levels.

The apprenticeship budget has been set until 2020 to support the Government’s commitment to 3 million apprenticeship starts in England by 2020. This budget does not change irrespective of wider economic trends. By 2020 the total apprenticeships investment in England will be almost £2.5 billion; double what was spent in 2010-11.