Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

I cannot declare any interest in relation to learning providers such as McDonald’s, but I declare an interest as a member of the corporation of Guildford College of Further and Higher Education, which is involved in providing work-based learning in various forms. I would like to be able to give it a similar advertisement for what it achieves as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has given to McDonald’s and its training programmes. We have a great deal of sympathy with this raft of amendments. It has been put to us by quite a number of those who have been in touch with us about the Bill that there should be incorporated somewhere within it a clear definition of "apprenticeship". We are sympathetic to that point of view. It does come out in the Bill and is quite clear from different bits if you put them all together: you are to be employed and to have off-the-job training leading to a recognised qualification for a trade or profession. All of this is in the Bill, scattered in different bits, but you have to put the bits together to arrive at the definition. It would be nice if, somewhere early in the Bill—and this comes at the beginning—there was a clear definition of "apprenticeship". After all, it started off as the draft apprenticeships Bill, and the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill now has all these other bits hanging on to it. We are also sympathetic to the notion that an apprenticeship involves being employed, but we have some problems with that being stated blankly within the definition. It does not always work that way, does it? I refer your Lordships to an excellent report produced by the Economic Affairs Committee of this House on apprenticeships. There is currently a dearth of apprenticeships in this country. Employers are not offering them. How can we offer an entitlement to an apprenticeship, which is core to the Bill, for those aged 14 to 16 who want to go into one if the jobs are not there? Over time, we can perhaps deliver on that entitlement. In particular, it is vital that the public sector opens up. There is currently a marked contrast between the number of apprenticeships offered within public sector organisations and those offered within the private sector. I know that the Government are conscious of this and are now trying to expand the number of public sector apprenticeships. I give one example of where we ought to expand apprenticeships. Universities have great difficulty in filling technician posts for their laboratories. When it was put to Imperial College—which was complaining about not being able to recruit people with the appropriate A-levels to fill such technician posts—that it might train apprentices, it said "Oh no, that is not for us". However, it is, is it not? Our universities ought to be thinking quite seriously about training people for technician posts. Across the board, it is important for us to look at apprenticeships, but it will take time to build up such opportunities. I talked about the dearth of apprenticeships that are available among employers but we currently face a fairly deep recession. Quite a number of young people are being made redundant from their apprenticeships at the moment. Do we just wipe them off the board? Certainly, at Guildford College we try to make sure that, where young people have been in apprenticeships and been made redundant, we pick them up and ensure that they at least finish their courses. We try to get them linked to another employer. We cannot always do that because the jobs are not necessarily available. The whole issue of whether the jobs are available and, if we offer an entitlement, whether we can deliver on that entitlement and—in the current situation—how quickly we will be able to move towards delivering on the entitlement, is very important. If we tie the definition into having to be employed, it could create problems. My noble friend Lady Walmsley will talk more about two other areas, including how exclusive we want apprenticeships to be. Are we going to exclude the disabled from access to apprenticeships? There are problems in accessing apprenticeship courses for those with learning and physical difficulties. They are not always attractive to employers. There are quite a lot of programmes that help such people to move towards apprenticeships. I am fully aware that the funding cut-off is extended to the age of 25 when learning difficulties or any form of disability are involved. Nevertheless, the need here for access to an apprenticeship is very important. The second group is made up of those who drop out of school, often at the age of 13 or 14, and later discover that they have more talent than they ever realised. Such organisations as the Rathbone Society and Barnardo’s pick them up and help them to move back into this area. We do not want apprenticeships to exclude the disadvantaged and be there only for the advantaged. It is vital, therefore, that we look at flexibility. Our amendments in the fourth group that we will debate today try to introduce some flexibility to the Bill. That flexibility needs to be there, at least in the shorter term. I believe that we need it in the longer term. We do not want apprenticeships to exclude those who, for one reason or another, are disadvantaged. There is a silver spoon for who those who go through school, taking GCSEs and A-levels, and go on to university. You could argue that there is another silver spoon for the bright kids who can pick up vocations. What about those for whom a vocational training is utterly right but whom the current school curriculum just turns off when they are 12, 13 or 14? As I say, they may discover later that they have abilities. These are the people whom Rathbone and Barnardo’s pick up. If we seek to make the most of the potential of all these young people, it is vital that we offer them the opportunity of an apprenticeship.