Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to support employers to provide placements for T-level students.

We have put in place a range of measures to make sure that employers are supported to offer T Level industry placements. This includes the National Apprenticeships Service who will provide a dedicated and fully trained team of account managers to provide advice and support to employers, and broker links with local education providers delivering industry placements during the current academic year. Education providers are receiving capacity and delivery funding in 2018-19 and 2019-20 to support their work with employers to deliver industry placements. In academic year 2017/18, we ran a pilot to test potential models for industry placements and understand delivery challenges and how to overcome them. This ran with 21 post 16 providers and up to 2000 students were involved with over 1000 employers offering placements in the 2017/18 academic year. The department has recently published a suite of online guidance and materials based on the learnings from this pilot to assist both providers and employers in delivering placements. We are establishing this support well in advance of the first T Levels being delivered in 2020.