Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the press notice entitled 50,000 more young people to benefit from apprenticeships as Government unveils new skills reforms to get Britain working, published in December 2025, if he will take steps to ensure comparable investment within non-mayoral strategic authorities for linking young people with employers for apprenticeship opportunities.

The government is investing £140 million over the current spending review period, to pilot, with Mayoral Strategic Authorities, new approaches to better connect young people aged 16-24, including those who are not in education, employment or training (NEET), to local apprenticeship opportunities. Funding beyond this is subject to future spending review processes.

The new Mayoral Strategic Authority (MSA) brokerage service pilots will enable us to test and learn from different local approaches as we build the evidence base for what works. MSAs are best placed to deliver these pilots due to their strategic oversight of local skills systems, established relationships with employers and training providers, and ability to operate at scale across functional economic areas.

We will announce further details about the pilots in due course, including which areas will take part. We expect the pilots to launch later this year, and we will share learning and best practise widely throughout the pilot.

More widely, to support our ambition of 50,000 more young people into apprenticeships, from August we are fully funding apprenticeship training for 16-24-year-olds with non-levy paying employers (typically SMEs), and from October we are introducing a new hiring payment of £2,000 for non-levy payers which take on 16-24 year old apprentices as new employees. This funding support is available to eligible employers across England.