Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

My Lords, my experience of working with sector skills councils and employers directly is that when an individual comes out of an apprenticeship and stands before an employer, that employer not only looks for accredited qualifications but wants to ask, "Actually, Margaret, where can I put you now so that you can do this work?". That is the whole point of the pattern of apprenticeships and the pathway we put people on. Qualifications are hugely important, and technical ability is important, but does my noble friend agree that the technical requirements of apprenticeships vary across the patch? Every employer needs to know that the individual can not only do technically good work but do the job which the employer hopes to employ them to do.