Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of trends in the level of apprenticeship starts since the introduction of the apprenticeship levy in April 2017.

There have been over 1.2 million apprenticeship starts since May 2015. We publish progress on the number of apprenticeships starts within the department for further education and skills statistical first release, which can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/further-education-and-skills-statistical-first-release-sfr#2017-releases.

We’ve introduced the apprenticeship levy to encourage sustained employer investment in high quality apprenticeships.

The previous year has seen significant changes for employers and understandably, it will take them time to adjust and respond. We must, however, not lose sight of why we introduced our reforms – to put quality at the heart of the programme for apprentices, and putting control in the hands of employers.