Apprenticeships

Given that I have talked about Scrooge and ““A Christmas Carol””, let me say that Dickens would have described the Mayor of London as a phenomenon—possibly an infant one, I do not know. What I would say about the Mayor is that his trajectory in following this Government's policies in a series of areas is rather interesting, but, secondly, I would say that we are delighted to welcome him to our big tent, as this is precisely what we have argued for a long time. The Government have discarded the guidance we put in place to encourage this development, so what we want to know is whether the Minister will listen to the broad range of groups supporting this change. Will he go back to those churlish officials who keep putting problems in his way, and will he support the private Member's Bill proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) when it returns to the House next month? These are crucial issues. While he is at it, will the Minister discourage rather more churlish people such as Minister for Housing and Local Government for describing apprenticeship requirements linked to public contracts as ““ridiculous”” and ““counter-productive””? The Government have had to face problems connected with further education loans, queries about ESOL—English for speakers of other languages—funding, active benefit restrictions and so forth. All that tells me is that we need to revisit the elephant in the room, which is how we develop a funding system that weighs properly and incentivises the contributions from the state, employers and individuals. That is a matter that Labour Members take very seriously, so we shall be looking at it in great detail in our policy review. As we move forward, the world of work will no doubt continue to be epitomised by the rapid change we have seen in the last 10 to 15 years; moves towards hi-tech industries and demand for high-quality niche products will still be valid. Apprenticeships will have to adapt to the challenge of providing skills for jobs that do not yet exist. Apprenticeships will have to respond to the growing wish for people to buy experiences as well as products—hence my comments about the service sector—and that will have implications for the manufacturing-service balance. Our apprenticeship structure must be robust enough to support that evolution. Apprenticeships will also have a key role in the"““partnership between productive business and active government””" to which the shadow Business Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna), referred recently. Opposition Members, many of whose parents, grandparents and other antecedents were apprentices, fully intend to play their part in that process. We will continue to support the Government while they build on our achievements in a sensible fashion, but we will also continue to question them about the devil in the detail—always along the lines of ““progression, progression, progression””. We shall be glad to have made a contribution to their learning curve.