Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

I shall speak also to Amendments 62 and 207. Before I get into the substance of the amendment, I should point out that our support for Amendment 1 did not preclude this group of amendments, simply because that amendment was so broadly drawn. Had the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said in his proposed subsection (a) that the person had to be employed and paid by an employer, we may not have been able to support it, but since it said, ""an agreement with an employer to train a person"," we found ourselves able to support it. The purpose of these amendments is to take account of the needs of those young people who have been out of education or employment for a while but who nevertheless are capable of benefiting from work-based training. They may not have the expected qualifications because they dropped out of education some time ago, nor a conventional background because they may be somewhat older than the average apprentice, but these are some of the young people whom we know the Government want to help and we must make sure that the Bill that leaves this House does not exclude them. A number of organisations, training providers and charities, such as Barnardo’s and Rathbone, provide such work-based courses and pay employers to take on the young people for the work-based part. They often run events in your Lordships' House and many of us have had the pleasure of meeting many impressive young people who have succeeded for the first time in their lives on these programmes and as a result have gained in confidence. These amendments seek to include those young people. The problem with the Bill is that it does not make adequate allowance for them. Rathbone has given us the case history of a young lady, Amina Begum, who is 19 years old and lives in Denton. Amina left secondary school with no qualifications and felt that she had nothing and could achieve nothing. Connexions advised her to go to a training provider. She went to Rathbone where she successfully retook her GCSEs and began an apprenticeship in childcare. Amina also suffered from crippling shyness, which she overcame with the help of an inspirational teacher at Rathbone. She now works full-time in Alphabet nursery in Denton, which is where she did her training, after which she was taken on. In the future, she hopes to own her own nursery. She said: ""I never really spoke to my family about doing an apprenticeship. As soon as I saw the opportunity I just went for it. I just thought, ‘yes, I’m getting somewhere, just go for it’. When they found out, they were really happy about it"." We have a second problem in that there are, as my noble friend Lady Sharp said earlier, not enough employers offering apprenticeships. We agree that apprenticeships would normally be where a young person works normally in the workplace while receiving on- and off-the-job training. However, if we find a way to accommodate the young people I have just mentioned, many of whom are the most disadvantaged, we can kill two birds with one stone. We can provide a route to apprenticeships which avoids cutting out a whole raft of people, while ensuring that those who can fulfil the usual conditions do so. The third sector is willing and able to continue doing its good work and take part in this important programme for young people. These amendments ensure that it can do so. Subsections (5) and (6) of Clause 1 offer an opportunity to start to put things right. The first of these probing amendments asks how far regulations may be extended to cover programmes of the sort offered by Rathbone and other learning providers, which offer the concept of an apprenticeship as a work-based programme by a recognised provider meeting recognised standards. That is very important. Is this covered by Clause 1(6)(b), which refers to, ""otherwise than for reward"?" Or do we need to be very clear, as suggested in our amendment, and add the words, ""as part of a recognised programme of training for an apprenticeship framework"?" Amendment 62, to Clause 30, pushes this a little further. Clause 30(2) states that an apprentice must undertake "work for another", who is called "the employer". Can that person be de facto a registered charity or a learning provider when it is offering the majority of the training in a workplace or do we need to specify clearly by putting in our new definition, which includes registered charities? Amendment 207, to Clause 91, goes one step further. It suggests that an apprenticeship place may be obtained either by employment or by, ""arrangements with a recognised charity or training provider which involve preparation for employment under such a framework";" that is, an apprenticeship framework. Noble Lords may have a few questions about the apprenticeships I am talking about. For example, are these apprenticeships real? Yes, they are. Young people on these work-based programmes do everything that a paid apprentice does. They obtain the same qualifications at the same levels. They get the same learning on the job and they acquire key skills et cetera. They get experience of doing a real job under full working conditions. The only difference is that they are not paid. That brings me to the second question, which is why do not employers pay them if they are so good? These young people have chaotic backgrounds. When an employer takes on a young person, they always take a risk of some sort. These young people represent an increased risk for employers. Therefore, employers are reluctant to recruit and pay them as employees. Earlier today in the Bishops’ Bar, I heard someone say, "Well, should they not be on pre-apprenticeship programmes"? No, they should not. They have already done programmes designed to overcome their disadvantage, whether it is an academic or a social disadvantage. They have overcome those difficulties and are now ready to start a real apprenticeship. However, finding an employer prepared to take them on with their chaotic backgrounds is very difficult. But these programmes allow the employer the opportunity to see the young person in the job without a financial risk. Once the employer sees a young person like Amina in action, they take them on. We have talked about the definition of apprenticeships. I do not believe that the core of an apprenticeship has anything to do with being paid. It is about whether the apprentice is learning from and working alongside a skilled man or woman in a real work setting and doing a real job. For many years, apprentices were very much accepted by society, but they were not paid. I am very glad to say that that has changed and that we now have paid apprentices, which is a good thing. However, employers might be happier to have apprentices undertaking a Rathbone or Barnardo’s training programme who they do not have to pay, rather than take on ordinary apprentices who they do have to pay. That situation would not occur if measures are taken to restrict either the organisations which can offer this type of apprenticeship or the types of individual who would qualify. That situation would be very easily dealt with. We are sure that the Government do not want to exclude the disadvantaged from apprenticeship opportunities. I hope that the Minister will either accept these amendments or let the House know how the Government will include these groups of young people. They deserve the same opportunity to have apprenticeships as all young people, but the Bill does not make that clear. I beg to move.