Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the reasons for the low level of representation of ethnic minorities among people starting an apprenticeship.

We are committed to increasing the proportion of apprenticeship starts taken up by people from Black and Minority Ethnic backgrounds by 20%.

We have begun detailed analysis of the apprenticeship data to gain a full picture of the representation of ethnic minorities in apprenticeships, any barriers to participation, and areas of potential for growth.

In 2014/15, 10.6% of those starting an apprenticeship had a BAME background.