Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to support young people into high quality jobs.

The department has introduced a range of skills reforms and published the ‘Skills for Jobs’ white paper in January 2021, which sets out our blueprint to reform post-16 education and training to support young people to get the skills they need to succeed throughout their lives, wherever they live in the country.

It is focused on giving people the skills they need now, and in the future, in a way that suits them. We are investing £3.8 billion in further education and skills to ensure people can access high-quality training and education that leads to good jobs, addresses current and future skills gaps, boosts productivity and supports levelling up.

My right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced on 27 October 2021 that we are investing an extra £1.6 billion for 16-19 education in 2024-25 compared with the 2021-22 financial year. This means an investment of up to £615 million in the 2022-23 financial year and is much needed support for our excellent further education sector.

This follows the extra £691 million allocated in the previous two years and the specific funding made available to help recovery from the COVID-19 outbreak, including the 16-19 Tuition Fund which will make available £400 million over four years (2020-21 academic year until 2023-24 academic year).

This investment will support our aim to ensure that every young person has access to an excellent education, and providers can make better decisions around what courses they offer and focus on delivering the skills needed for a thriving and productive economy and society, with a particular emphasis on levelling up.

We are introducing T Levels, boosting access to high quality technical education for thousands of 16–19 year olds. Young people are now benefitting from these pioneering new qualifications, designed by employers to ensure students get the skills they need for great jobs.

We are supporting the largest-ever expansion of traineeships, providing funding for up to 72,000 places over the next three years. We are introducing more occupational traineeships, which are aligned to apprenticeship standards and will significantly increase the opportunities for young people to progress into apprenticeships or other employment.

Funding for apprenticeships in England will grow to £2.7 billion by the 2024-25 financial year to support more apprenticeships in employers of all sizes. We are encouraging more young people to consider apprenticeships through our Apprenticeship Support & Knowledge programme which provides resources and interventions to help better educate young people about apprenticeships

In January we launched our ‘Get the Jump’ campaign to help young people aged 14-19 to understand their education and training choices, how they compare and where they can lead. Further information can be found here: https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/explore-your-education-and-training-choices.