Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 29 January 2018 to Question 124463, what plans he has to increase the rate of apprenticeship starts in order to meet the three million target by 2020.

We are working with employers to offer more apprenticeship opportunities - helping them to plan their future programmes including through the account management of over 1,000 of the largest levy-paying employers. We have recently announced initial awards totalling around £485 million to hundreds of providers across the country to provide apprenticeship training to non-levy paying employers.

We are using every opportunity to communicate the benefits of apprenticeships and encouraging the take up. A new phase of our communications campaign started on 26 January 2018, to encourage employers to offer apprenticeship opportunities and to promote these to potential apprentices. This will build on the National Apprenticeship Service’s ongoing engagement and communications activity to increase awareness and promote the benefits of apprenticeships among employers and learners.

Apprenticeships are open to individuals and employers across the country, and we are investing in the whole of England by doubling funding for apprenticeships to £2.45 billion by 2019-20 – twice what was spent in 2010-11 – and giving employers more power than ever before to design apprenticeship training that meets their needs.