Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many grants have been awarded to firms to support trainees to gain work experience since the Spending Review 2020.

We are supporting the largest-ever expansion of traineeships, providing an additional 30,000 places in 2020/21 academic year, to ensure that more young people have access to high-quality training. To encourage this, we have introduced £1000 incentive payments for employers who offer traineeship work placement opportunities between 1 September 2020 and 31 July 2021. The new incentive payment will enable employers to apply for £1000 per learner, for up to 10 learners per region, in each of the 9 regions of England.

From 27 January, employers can register to claim this incentive payment and as such, we do not yet have data on the take-up of incentive payments. Employers will be able to claim the incentive payment for all completed traineeship work experience placements that take place between the 1 September 2020 and 31 July 2021 even if the traineeship started before the 1 September 2020. We will monitor the take-up of the new payments and will assess their impact on traineeships starts to ensure traineeships continue to provide the extra support required by young people for them to progress into work or onto an apprenticeship.