Apprenticeships

I welcome such initiatives, while also recognising that many local authorities—such as mine in Sheffield, which is facing a 30% cut in funding over a four-year period—will have difficulty finding the money to launch such new initiatives. Assistance of that sort does need to be provided, however, and the Government might try to identify funds to support local authorities in taking initiatives such as that in Shepway. We can also do more in our constituencies to work with small businesses, and I applaud the efforts of the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) and other Members on both sides of the House in setting up the Parliamentary Academy. As employers, we are not dissimilar to SMEs. Our offices operate as micro-businesses, and we are busy, money is tight and we might never have taken on an apprentice before. I was pleased to take on an apprentice even before the Minister invited us to do so. A young woman called Rebecca is working in my office as an apprentice secretary, in partnership with Sheffield college. At the end of the year she will gain a level 2 BTEC in business and administration, by spending one day a week in the college and four days a week in my office, with regular visits from the work-based learning assessor. She will come out of the scheme with skills and experience enabling her to get a job, and she will have assisted the work of my office over this year. There is a lesson in that for all small businesses. I encourage other MPs to take a lead on this issue by employing apprentices. I hope the Minister will also recognise that there is much more that we can do collectively and that his Government can do to advance the cause of apprenticeships. I hope he will respond in his closing remarks to the comments of the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South (Mr Marsden), about the powerful role the Government can play in public procurement. It is unfortunate that this Government have backed away from some of the initiatives Labour took when we were in power, and I hope the Minister will recognise the opportunities that exist to use the role of government locally and nationally as consumer in order to bind companies to take on more apprentices.