Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, pursuant to the Answer of 19 November 2015 to Question 16367, whether initiatives offering pre-16 training in digital skills to school children before they enter the workforce will be supported by the apprenticeship levy.

The levy will support apprenticeship training to help employers to deliver 3 million starts on high quality apprenticeships.

All apprenticeships must be paid jobs with on- and off-the-job training lasting at least a year that develops transferable skills and leads to full competence in an occupation.

Employers can only spend levy funds on apprenticeship training delivered by an approved provider and will not be able to use the levy to pay for other types of training or work experience.