Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent steps he has taken to help businesses create more apprenticeships in (a) Solihull and (b) the West Midlands.

We have introduced a wide range of reforms to apprenticeships to improve their quality and to encourage employers across England to increase the number of apprenticeships that they offer.

New apprenticeship standards across all levels are being designed by industries to give apprentices the skills that businesses need. Over 400 standards are available for employers to use, with over 170 more in development, and we can see that employers are moving quickly to this new higher quality offer. There were 163,700 starts on apprenticeship standards in 2017/18, which is more than 6 times higher than the number of starts in 2016/17.

From April 2019, the amount that levy-paying employers can transfer to other employers will increase from 10% to 25%. The National Apprenticeship Service is working closely with the West Midlands Combined Authority to promote levy transfers from large employers, including HSBC and Lloyds, to local small and medium-sized enterprises in the automotive, digital and construction sectors.