Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment he has made of the effect of degree apprenticeships on (a) local and (b) national skills needs.

Our reforms to apprenticeships have put employers in the driving seat to design the apprenticeships to support the skills needs of their business, local area, or sector. This is creating an apprenticeship provider market that is highly responsive to the needs of employers, ensuring independent providers, further education colleges, and higher education institutions develop training at all levels to meet these skills needs. We know that employers, providers and apprentices alike are positive about degree apprenticeships. We want to continue to support employers to unlock their potential to improve productivity, bring parity of esteem with other higher education choices, and widen participation in employment and higher education.

We are encouraged to see examples of training providers across England working closely with employers and sector bodies to build effective partnerships which are delivering more degree-level apprenticeships each year. Those opportunities are responding to the employment needs of employers and developing hubs of high-quality apprenticeship training that provide the higher-level skills the economy needs.