Education and Skills Bill

We have some sympathy with the noble Lord’s amendment and agree that, if the Bill is to achieve what it sets out to do, those apprenticeships must be available in the first place. The complexities of how the different funding streams will work and how they can be accessed easily by employers must be looked at. We all agree that we must do everything we can to ensure that all employers are fully engaged in providing apprenticeships. We were assured in a recent meeting with the Federation of Small Businesses that it sees apprenticeships as important to the development of business. We will need to look much more closely at what the noble Lord, Lord Layard, has said.