Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education,how many apprenticeships have been created in each month since the introduction of the apprenticeship levy in Wolverhampton North East constituency.

The attached table provides figures for apprenticeship starts for each month since May 2017, when significant structural changes to the apprenticeship funding system were implemented following the introduction of the apprenticeship levy and apprenticeship service.

The profile of apprenticeship starts changed significantly both in the run-up to the introduction of the levy and subsequently. Care should be taken when comparing individual months between academic years as they are unlikely to provide a meaningful year-on-year trend. Numbers of reported starts are likely to change as the reforms to apprenticeship funding continue to bed in and employers engage with the new system.