Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

The hon. Gentleman has only recently entered the Chamber, so I do not think it would be appropriate to let him intervene. The Bill provides a statutory guarantee of an apprenticeship place for young people, but it is a guarantee that carries no definition of what an apprenticeship is, has no mechanism for its delivery, and provides no measures to ensure quality. Instead of legislating, the Secretary of State should be taking the practical measures that will make more apprenticeships available. It is welcome that contractors to Building Schools for the Future will be required to take on apprenticeships in this coming year; it is only a shame that the Secretary of State decided to announce that in the Sunday Mirror, rather than on the Floor of the House today. It is practical measures that will provide the places, which are most desperately needed. As my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) set out, the number of people who have had access to apprenticeships has been grossly short of the promises made by the Government, and specifically by the Prime Minister. In fact, there has been a fall in numbers in the past few years. The Government have not simply made false promises; they have also used sleight of hand. Government websites announce that apprenticeships have undergone a renaissance in the last decade, yet they have not. All apprenticeships used to be level 3 or A-level equivalent, but the Government have added other, lower-level youth training to boost the apparent numbers. In fact, there are now fewer level 3 apprenticeships—now called advanced apprenticeships—than 10 years ago. A key question is whether the Bill will streamline apprenticeship provision. Far from it. Clause 4 gives responsibility to the chief executive of the new Skills Funding Agency—the SFA—to be the certifying authority for apprenticeships. He in turn will delegate that to the new National Apprenticeship Service—the NAS. Clause 11 says that sector skills councils—SSCs—in partnership with standard setting bodies, or SSBs, will be responsible for apprenticeship frameworks. Local education authorities will be responsible for all 16-to-18 education and training, including apprenticeships, yet the SFA is apparently also responsible for all apprenticeships. No one knows how the relationship between the SFA, its agency the NAS, the Young People's Learning Agency—the YPLA—and LEAs will work and who will have ultimate responsibility. LEAs report to the Department for Children, Schools and Families; the YPLA reports to the DCSF; the SFA reports to the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills; the NAS reports to both the DCSF and the DIUS. So responsibility for apprenticeships falls between the DCSF and the DIUS. That has the potential to result in a loss of expertise, accountability and oversight, as well as causing waste, bureaucracy and indecision. It is absurd to have two Government Departments overseeing apprenticeships, and equally absurd to have four agencies vying for influence instead of just one. How important are apprenticeships? They are more important now than they have ever been, so the Government do at least deserve to be congratulated, as other Members have said, on introducing a Bill in which apprenticeships come at the front and are recognised. There are many areas where we will need a skilled work force in the future, not least in health and social care. In the East Riding there is expected to be a 65 per cent. increase in the number of people with dementia between now and the early-2020s. I did a shift at a residential care home in my constituency a couple of Fridays ago, and saw how hard the staff there work under the great pressure—physical, as well as mental—of providing care for people, many of whom had dementia and others who had suffered a stroke or had physical disabilities. To see those people hard at work and to realise how great the demographic time bomb is in that area is to know the importance of having apprenticeships that will lead people into that sector, as well of having funding mechanisms that will provide them with fairer pay levels.