Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the impact of the apprenticeship levy on the uptake of apprenticeships.

Since 2010, there have been over 5.5 million apprenticeship starts. During that time, the department has built a new skills system from the ground up which better meets the needs of employers and apprentices today.

The apprenticeship levy was introduced in 2017 to incentivise larger businesses to develop and invest in their own apprenticeship programmes whilst ensuring the availability of funding for smaller employers wanting to offer apprenticeships.

There have been over 2.2 million apprenticeship starts in employers of all sizes across England since the levy was introduced. There are now over 680 high quality standards available from entry level right through to masters level, with over 5,000 employers involved in their development. There is now a much broader range of apprenticeships than ever before in occupations such as architect, cyber security, and nursing, in addition to traditional occupations like bricklayer, plumber, or hairdresser.

More apprentices are now taking higher level subjects linked to higher paid jobs in key areas. Starts on higher apprenticeships at Level 4 and above have more than doubled, from 48,150 in the 2017/18 academic year to 106,360 in the 2021/22 academic year. The department has also seen year-on-year growth of degree level apprenticeships with almost 196,000 starts since their introduction in 2014. The department is providing an additional £40 million over the next two years to support degree apprenticeship providers to expand and help more people access them.

The apprenticeship levy has enabled the government to increase investment in the apprenticeships system in England, reaching £2.7 billion by the 2024/25 financial year. In the past two financial years, on average 98% of the English apprenticeship budget was spent showing strong demand by employers for high quality apprenticeships training. Large employers can use their levy contributions to fund apprenticeships in their own business, or they can transfer their funds to other businesses in their supply chain, sector or region. Funds that levy payers do not draw on are used to fund apprenticeship training in small and medium sized businesses which allows employers of all sizes to benefit from training apprentices.