Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

While welcoming what the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, has said about it being clear in the Bill about exactly what an apprenticeship is, there is a difficulty, which the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp of Guildford, has raised. As David Blanchflower, the retiring Monetary Policy Committee member, said last night, we have seen the worst month’s employment figures ever, with the largest, and highest percentage, increase in one month. He spoke of a lost generation of young people. We are talking about nearly 900,000 under-25s now, and when the class of 2009 graduates there will be more than a million. When we have this problem, we particularly wish to think about the issue that the noble Baroness referred to—and was raised by Rathbone and Barnardo’s—of not just children and young people with disabilities, but those who are on the margins. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, referred to defining an apprenticeship as having to be paid employment. There are concerns, which we will come to later, that there should be some flexibility and that some unpaid programmes should lead to paid employment and could particularly benefit young people who might otherwise be disengaged from any idea of employment. While welcoming the broad thrust of what the noble Lord said, I think that there is that concern on the side.