Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

My Lords, to emphasise the concerns that noble Lords have expressed, in his 2003 Budget Gordon Brown promised that apprenticeship places would rise to 320,000 by 2006, but by 2006-07 we were 80,000—that is, 20 per cent—short of that total. Indeed, numbers were falling. That disappointing performance reinforces the concerns of my noble friend Lord Eccles. I am sure that the Minister will repeat his words about the need for balance, and we are all in agreement about the need to spend taxpayers’ money carefully, but there seems little point in enacting this part of the Bill if there is no hope of the places being achieved. What reassurance can the Minister offer to both my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Layard, that apprenticeship provision will indeed increase in order to meet demand?