Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans he has to increase the number of students taking on apprenticeships.

Apprenticeships provide people with the opportunity to earn and learn the skills needed to start an exciting career in a wide range of industries, everything from artificial intelligence, archaeology, data science, business management, and banking. We want more people to benefit from high-quality apprenticeships.

On 21 January 2021 we published the Skills for Jobs White Paper focused on giving people the skills they need, in a way that suits them, so they can get great jobs in sectors the economy needs and boost this country’s productivity. Our reforms will build on our successful apprenticeship reforms, where a focus on employer needs and standards transformed apprenticeships into a prestigious choice. A key aim of the White Paper is to continue to improve and grow apprenticeships, so more employers and individuals can benefit from them.

To encourage more students to consider apprenticeships, we are promoting apprenticeships in schools through our Apprenticeship Support & Knowledge programme. This free service provides schools and teachers with resources and interventions to help better educate young people about apprenticeships. In addition, a provider access law, introduced in January 2018 and commonly known as the ‘Baker Clause’, requires all maintained schools and academies to publish a policy statement setting out opportunities for providers of technical education and apprenticeships to visit schools to talk to all year 8-13 pupils, and to make sure the statement is followed. In the Skills for Jobs white paper, the department announced the introduction of a 3-point-plan to enforce the Baker Clause. This includes creating clear minimum legal requirements, specifying who is to be given access to which pupils and when. This is an important step towards real choice for every pupil.

We are also working with the Department for Work and Pensions to enable Kickstart placements to turn into apprenticeships where that is the right thing for the employer and the young person. We have made a special provision to allow employers taking on Kickstarters as apprentices to be eligible for the incentive payment, supporting a pathway between the schemes.

We are supporting the largest ever expansion of traineeships, providing an additional 30,000 places in the 2020-21 academic year, to ensure that more young people have access to high-quality training to develop skills, experience, and confidence to obtain an apprenticeship. We are developing traineeships in construction and rail to support young people to transition into apprenticeships in these sectors. We have introduced £1,000 incentive payments for employers who offer traineeship work placement opportunities between 1 September 2020 and 31 July 2021.