Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009 (Consequential Amendments) (England and Wales) Order 2010

My Lords, I welcome the orders. I know that they cover England and Wales, but I want to mention that in my native city of Glasgow there is an excellent project taking place with the building services department—or City Building, as it is now called—where pupils as young as 14 are allowed to come from local schools into workshops and participate in pre-apprentice training. This has had a positive effect in the schools. The head teachers tell me that it has helped with discipline; when young boys or girls are behaving badly, they can be told that they are not going to go to City Building if they misbehave. They like the idea of being in a grown-up environment and learning from craftsmen and craftswomen in a way that is almost like mentoring. If they show promise, then by the time they are ready to leave school at 16, they can be offered apprenticeships as electricians, plasterers, bricklayers and carpenters. All these are trades that mean that these young people, once they become journeymen, can move easily into self-employment. Perhaps we can look at this for local authorities south of the border. It is an excellent scheme and has been very successful. I hope we do not lose sight of the fact that many young men and women leave school and, perhaps because they did not get much guidance from their parents or because of economic circumstances, then go into unskilled jobs. As time goes on and they reach their mid-20s or even later, they regret the fact that they do not have a trade or an apprenticeship in order to learn one. These are adults who have been in other areas of work, but find that because they are unskilled, they have great difficulty finding employment. If they are willing to make the sacrifice to become adult apprentices, we should give them every encouragement. After all, if people in their 20s or 30s want to go to university, we encourage them to do that, so why do we not support them if they want to become engineers, welders or metalworkers by taking up the kind of apprenticeship that I served? However, I must say that the catering industry is very good about taking on adult apprentices, so I hope that the engineering and building industries would also be willing to do so if they were given the right encouragement by the Government. It is a great thing that the Government are getting involved in ensuring that people can serve apprenticeships. They are an investment in young people’s futures because they will have a skill within four or five years of leaving school. They can be self-sufficient, raise a family and become a credit to the community.