Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if his Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of devolving the (a) level and (b) operation of the apprenticeship levy to (i) the devolved administrations, (ii) local authorities and (iii) other local bodies.

As skills is a devolved matter, the devolved administrations already receive their share of the apprenticeship levy. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will receive £460 million between them in 2019/20 from HM Treasury. It is for these administrations to decide how they develop their skills policy, including how they fund and operate their apprenticeship programmes.

While we have devolved some elements of our skills policy to the local level, such as the adult skills budget, we have been clear that we need to keep the development of apprenticeships policy as a nationally driven and funded programme. This is critical if the system is to produce the skills employers need. As the apprenticeship programme is demand led, we expect employers to request the training they require at the local level.

The apprenticeships levy is devolved to individual employers. Those paying the levy decide how the funds in their accounts are used and there are a number of measures in place to support smaller employers and encourage them to offer apprenticeships. One example of this would be the co-investment of 90 per cent of apprenticeship training and assessment costs provided by government, and our recent procurement to deliver apprenticeship training to non-levy payers (including smaller employers). Through this we have procured over £550 million of apprenticeship training with providers who will work locally with smaller employers to deliver the apprenticeships they want.