Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of providing additional funding for leadership and management apprenticeships in Yeovil constituency.

The government is transforming the apprenticeships levy into a new growth and skills levy. This will deliver greater flexibility to employers, more opportunities for young people and support the industrial strategy across the country, including in the Yeovil constituency.

Over the past decade we’ve seen apprenticeship starts by those aged 16-24 fall by 40%. This Government wants to reverse that decline and support 50,000 more young people into apprenticeships.

We are therefore reviewing the existing apprenticeship offer, which has grown to more than 700 standards, an outlier by international standards, to ensure it better supports young people starting their careers.

From September 2026, we will withdraw funding from 16 existing apprenticeship standards. Three of these are generic leadership and management apprenticeships, which have grown significantly but are predominantly used as continuing professional development for established staff aged 25 and over. Nearly 90% of apprentices on these leadership and management standards were over 25 (compared to 50% across the programme as a whole); and 83% were long-term employees (compared to 43% across the programme as whole – which is a 10-year high).

These changes will create headroom to invest in opportunities for young people and new apprenticeship units and ensure more of our finite investment is targeted on national skills priorities.

Employers who value these apprenticeship standards can continue to use them on a privately funded basis.