Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they will publish details of how the apprenticeship levy will affect employers in the devolved UK nations.

On 12 August, we published proposals for how apprenticeships will be funded in England from May 2017; these include how apprentices living elsewhere in the UK, but employed in England, will be supported. Details are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/views-sought-on-plans-to-boost-apprenticeships.

We are committed to publishing final funding rates and rules for England by the end of October. Discussions are taking place with devolved administrations to ensure that apprenticeship funding works for employers wherever they are in the UK, when the levy is introduced.

The apprenticeship levy will be payable at 0.5% of pay bill by employers across the whole of the UK. An allowance of £15,000 means that only employers with a pay bill of more than £3 million per year will pay the levy, less than 2% of employers. The levy will come into effect on 6 April 2017.

The UK government has made a commitment that the devolved administrations will receive a fair share of the levy, and discussions are ongoing to deliver this outcome. As skills policy is devolved it is for the devolved administrations to decide how they will fund apprenticeships in their nations.