Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to (a) financially support apprentices who cannot finish their programme as a result of the effect of covid-19 restrictions on normal assessment procedures and (b) introduce alternative arrangements for those apprentices.

Apprenticeships are more important now than ever in helping businesses to recruit the right people and develop the skills they need to recover and grow following the COVID-19 outbreak. Ensuring apprentices can continue to progress and achieve their apprenticeships during the disruption caused by COVID-19 continues to be a priority.

We have introduced a range of flexibilities in the delivery of training and apprenticeship assessment to support apprentices and their employers to ensure they can continue with and complete their apprenticeships. These include encouraging the remote delivery of training, introducing flexibilities to end-point assessments, and allowing furloughed apprentices to continue their apprenticeships and end-point assessments. We continue to monitor closely the availability of assessments and to address any identified barriers to participation and assessment.

Where apprentices are made redundant, we have taken steps to support these individuals and ensure more can continue and complete their apprenticeship. The department introduced a redundancy support service for apprentices which provides clear, accessible advice and guidance to individuals on the impact of redundancy, their options and next steps. As part of this service we also launched a vacancy sharing scheme to help redundant apprentices find new apprenticeship opportunities with employers. Over 1000 employers have signed up to the service to offer opportunities to redundant apprentices, including Bupa Dental and Taylor Wimpey.

We have amended legislation so that all apprentices who have less than 6 months of their apprenticeship remaining or have completed 75% of their apprenticeship at the point of redundancy can be funded to complete their apprenticeship. This change will mean more apprentices can complete their apprenticeship, maximising the value of public and employer investment in their training and putting them in a stronger position to secure new employment.

To help support employers to offer new apprenticeships, including to those that have been made redundant, employers are now able to claim £2,000 for every new apprentice they hire under the age of 25, and £1,500 for those 25 and over, until 31 January 2021.