Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the reasons for the fall in the number of apprenticeship starts between May to July 2017 compared to the same period in 2016.

The apprenticeship reforms introduced earlier this year are the largest changes to apprenticeships the government has ever made. We are transforming the skills landscape and in light of these changes, it would premature to draw definitive conclusions on the basis of the limited data available. We fully expect there to be a period of adjustment while employers decide how to maximise the opportunities these reforms present them.

We have been working hard to support employers in training and recruiting new apprentices. There have been over 1.1 million apprenticeship starts since May 2015 and we still aim to achieve 3 million apprenticeship starts in England by 2020.