To achieve social justice and deal with the skills deficit, we need a skills revolution. In many sectors, we have a real skills shortage, particularly at level 4 and above. Young people are pushed towards traditional degrees, but only 52% are getting jobs after graduation that require a degree, according to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. On the flipside, degree apprenticeships are just not growing fast enough, and we need to invest more in further education and skills provision.
I welcome what the Minister has said today, and I thank him for meeting me to discuss this issue. We must go further on nursing apprenticeships, which I believe are the answer to this whole problem. We can square the circle and support nurses by rapidly expanding the apprenticeship programme. Hon. Members will know that I am a passionate advocate of apprenticeships, and I therefore support the introduction of new routes into nursing, through degree apprenticeships and the creation of the nursing associate role.
Nursing degree apprentices will not have to pay anything themselves, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield), a brilliant former nurse, explained. They will be able to become degree-registered nurses in four years. Similarly, the new nursing associate role will provide extra capacity in the workforce, and many of those who train as nursing associates may decide to continue to degree-level nursing.
The twin themes of the Education Committee in this Parliament are social justice and productivity. Nursing degree apprenticeships are key to both. They offer an attractive route both for mature students and for those with children, ensuring that all those who wish to train as nurses have the opportunity to do so. I am not suggesting that people should not have the choice of a three-year undergraduate course, but we must maximise the opportunities provided by degree apprenticeships. Doing so would mean that we have a sufficient nursing workforce and that aspiring nurses have options for training.
I have real worries about the fact only 30 people began training as a nurse through the nursing apprenticeship schemes this year, and we need to rapidly improve the number of people doing degree apprenticeships. There needs to be a taskforce involving the Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills, the Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation, Health Ministers, the Institute for Apprenticeships and others to drive this forward and to encourage people with a proper advertising campaign, using the £200 million levy. Thirty is just not enough; we need many thousands of people. If people in my constituency and across the country knew about the schemes, they would want to take them up.