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I also reiterate my commitment to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, that we will indeed ensure that, in developing these regulations, we will act in accordance with the public sector disability equality duty under Section 49A of the Disability Discrimination Act, and also the Education and Skills Act 2008, which requires us to take account of the needs of those with learning difficulties and disabilities. Let me be absolutely clear about our commitment to ensuring access to apprenticeships and other training opportunities for people with learning difficulties. My honourable friend the Minister for Apprenticeships will be taking a close interest in the development of these regulations, and he will expect to have a progress report before the end of March.
I share the commitment of my noble friends Lord Layard, Lady Blackstone and Lady Morris in Amendment 110, to progression for all young people, in particular from an apprenticeship at level 2 to one at level 3. I respect and understand their perseverance,
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Amendment 129 was another issue that we considered in Committee. I understand the motive behind this amendment, which is to incentivise more employers to take on young people as apprentices, an objective which everyone in this House shares. I am happy to reassure him that there are already administrative arrangements in place to enable employers to access funding for apprenticeship training directly from the National Apprenticeships Service. I have asked the National Apprenticeships Service to ensure that it promotes this option proactively to employers, and I will take a personal, active interest in ensuring that they really will undertake a programme to promote this option, and not leave it to employers merely to request the funding. My noble friend understands the question of ensuring that if we give direct funding, we have to ensure that there is a proper process of accreditation and that the courses provided are of the appropriate standard. I hope, on the basis of these assurances, that my noble friends will feel able to withdraw their amendments.
Finally, on government Amendments 121 and 122, the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, quite rightly raised a question about why it was that the levels of qualification in Clause 96 were based on the opinion of the Secretary of State, and had no input from the Office of the Qualifications and Examinations Regulator.
The clause reflects the drafting in the Education and Skills Act 2008, and was drafted prior to the drafting of the clauses that establish Ofqual. Once again, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his forensic skills in bringing that to our attention, and I trust that he, and the whole House, will agree that the amendments, which ensure that the Secretary of State must consult Ofqual, address that omission. I beg to move.
Lord Layard: My Lords, I very much welcome the replacement of the offensive word "scheme". That is a huge improvement and makes the proposal much more satisfactory.
I am not entirely happy with what the Minister said about Amendment 110. It seems to me that this is a basic question about what we are offering our young people. If they are going down the full-time route, they are guaranteed progression; if they are going down the part-time route, they are not. It is as simple as that. If we were saying, "Can we do it?", obviously, the answer is that we could not do it tomorrow, but we are not saying that, we are saying that when the entitlement is introduced, it should include a guarantee of progression.
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We cannot be happy about what the Minister has said, and I think that we will have to come back to it, because it involves the central content of the Bill. We have a huge apparatus to set up an apprenticeship scheme, but the scheme has a major weakness at its heart, which we will have to revisit.
I move to Amendment 129. I was very encouraged by what the Minister said, in particular about his personal commitment to ensure that the selling of apprenticeships to employers-making known the possibility for them to receive direct funding-is actively pursued. However, I think something more is needed: a set of regulations that make that route more attractive to employers. We must make apprenticeships much more attractive to employers if we are to implement the entitlements that we have been talking about. In the next six years, we must double the number of apprenticeships for young people under 19. That is a massive challenge, and it cannot be done unless we make apprenticeships more attractive to employers-especially those who do not currently take on apprentices.
It is often not realised that most large employers do not employ any apprentices. Of employers employing more than 500 people, only 25 per cent have any apprentices. There is something very wrong in the way that we are structuring the incentives for employers. We will not engage enough further employers unless we can find new ways to motivate them. It will be just more of the same, which will not get us to where we need to be. The obvious method is to make it easier for them to get direct access to apprentice funding. At the moment, it is possible in theory, but in practice it happens extremely rarely, expect in the case of big national employers. There is simple evidence that the system is not structured to attract employers to do the things they need to do if we are to get the places we want. It seems to me that the existing system is doing a good job through the training companies-there is no question of wanting to displace that role, but we have got to open up a new route. The Government really need to produce new regulations which overcome some of the barriers that employers currently experience in thinking about accessing the funding directly. There needs to be a Government commitment to producing a new set of regulations that make the direct funding route more attractive to employers. Will the Minister, given his enthusiasm for this subject, commit to actually producing a scheme of regulations rather than just a promotional effort? I do not think that anything less will do.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford: My Lords, we have a great deal of sympathy with the two amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Layard. Regarding
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Turning to Amendment 129, the Minister may know that there has been a recent CFBT publication called Lessons from history:Increasing the number of 16 and 17 year olds in education and training. This points out that a scheme of subsidies to employers to take on young apprentices during the recession of 1979 to 1983 actually helped to increase the number of 16 to 18 year-olds going into employer-based apprenticeships by 57,000. These are very substantial figures. There are lessons to be learnt from history. In Committee, the Minister talked about the "dead weight" of perhaps providing a subsidy for young people. He should bear in mind that we are talking about those under 19, not those over 19 for whom this wage subsidy should be provided. One could argue that it should be for small firms rather than large firms. The noble Lord, Lord Layard, pointed out that many large firms do not pull their weight in taking on the number of apprentices that they might. If you look at Train to Gain you can argue that the wage compensation for small firms provides some form of subsidy for those who are over 19. If you are providing a subsidy through Train to Gain for those over 19, why not provide it for those under 19 as well?
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The Government say that they will increase the learning participation age to 18 by 2015. In trying to encourage more 16 to 18-year-olds to go into apprenticeships-they will have all the stocks by that stage-they are offering any young person who wishes to go into an apprenticeship the entitlement to do so; yet no apprenticeships are available at present. How will they ensure that the number of apprenticeships is available? Such a scheme would undoubtedly help to increase the number on offer. They need, in any case, to expand the 16 and 17 year-old employer-based apprenticeships by turning jobs without training into apprenticeships. It is part of their whole strategy that those who leave at 16 and go into jobs without training should become apprentices.
Finally, part of the Government's strategy is to reduce the number of those who end up not in employment, education or training-the NEET category-which currently stands at 9 per cent and is rising. However, I point out to the Minister that over the past year the number of 16 and 17 year-olds going into apprenticeships has not increased but has gone down. On Amendment 99, a very disappointing number of young people have progressed from a level 2
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Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, I, too, support my noble friend Lord Layard. Indeed, I put my name to these two amendments. I will not repeat everything that has already been said, although I very much agree with much of what the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, has just said.
On Amendment 110, the Minister said that employers would be required to discuss with young people who had completed a level 2 apprenticeship the possibility of moving on to a level 3 apprenticeship. I very much support that proposal, but I do not think that it goes far enough. As my noble friend Lord Layard said, we do not have the opportunity very often to change the law on a subject such as this. When we have such an opportunity, we should grasp it, as we would for young people who are in full-time education.
I am particularly concerned about the lack of equity between those who will go down the part-time, work-based learning route and those who will go down the full-time, GCSE to A-levels, A-levels to higher education route. It is grotesquely unfair to give that latter group of young people an entitlement but not to allow it for this group of young people, particularly as many of them will come from much less privileged backgrounds where they do not have the kind of support that the other category of young people can expect from their families and from other people in their neighbourhoods and communities. We will lose an enormously important opportunity if we do not have an entitlement in the Bill.
As my noble friend said, if we were going to implement this legislation tomorrow, or even next year or the year after, I would understand the reluctance of my colleagues in the Government to accept this amendment, but we have six years to plan for it. I believe passionately that we should accept it and in doing so make a future for many young people which they currently do not have. Our economy needs it, so it is a matter not just of social justice but of having more highly trained young people. Whatever benefits we will get from larger numbers of 16 to 19 year-olds doing a level 2 apprenticeship we will be able to multiply many times over if we assume that those who do this successfully can go on to the next stage. I am sure that no one in this House would believe that a level 2 apprenticeship will be enough to take us to the next stage of a highly trained, highly skilled workforce for the sort of economy we will see as the 21st century develops. I very much hope that the Minister will take this back and think again about it. We have an enormous budget in Train to Gain and there might be an opportunity to shift some of those resources into something for those 19 to 25 year-olds or 19 to 22 year-olds-whatever cut-off date we make-who want to take their education and training to the next stage.
Behind my commitment to Amendment 125 lies a genuine concern that we will not get enough apprenticeship places. We are starting from a very low base. There has to be a strong and powerful incentive to employers to get engaged with the provision of apprenticeships. I have talked to quite a number of employers in the public and private sectors, and they are worried about
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I accept that the details of this may need a little more work, but it seems a reasonable requirement that the head of the National Apprenticeship Service should put forward a totally comprehensible scheme which is not too bureaucratic and is easily accessible for employers who wish to engage in apprenticeships. They are a little nervous and concerned about what it will mean for their firms and organisations, in the public as well as the private sector, if they go down this route. They are concerned that there may be very little to compensate them for the extra time that it takes to look after these young employees and give them the training that they deserve.
I, too, join others in thanking the Government for changing the nomenclature. Terminology is important and the word "offer" is a much better term than scheme. I very much welcome what the Minister has said about improving access to apprenticeships for disabled young people. They have a huge amount to give and we should do everything we can to make it easier for them to get the training that they want and deserve. I give my grateful thanks to the Government for moving in that respect.
Lord Ramsbotham: My Lords, I agree with a great deal that has been said about these amendments. In particular, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, about the need for caution regarding whether the resources are available to provide these apprenticeships. Secondly, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, in her use of the word honesty. It is extremely important that we are honest with our young people and that we do not offer them something that cannot be delivered. I do not know whether Members of the House are aware that Nissan, the Japanese car firm in Sunderland, is offering more apprenticeships than the whole of the public sector in the north-east. That suggests that it is hugely important to have a close dialogue with employers to ensure that the apprenticeships offered in particular parts of the country are related to the employment available so that there is a follow-on to whatever people have learnt. It suggests that dialogue in different parts of the country is different, but that it is based on resources and honesty, as mentioned by the two noble Baronesses.
Lord Addington: My Lords, I thank the Government for bringing forward Amendment 120. Without it, the Bill would have been a hugely retrograde step. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Young, for tabling the amendment, for the meeting that he held, and for the way in which he told us about it. This may be asking for the cherry on the top of the cake as well, but I hope he can confirm, given the traditions and practices that have grown up around allowing in those with special educational needs, that the whole idea of the work-in-progress attitude will be taken forward. The noble Lord covered most of this, particularly the legal grounds which he described very well, but is it the Government's intention that the spirit which has been developed is to be carried forward? It will mean that people are not excluded
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Again, I thank the Minister for bringing forward government Amendment 120. It removes one of my great worries about the Bill. I might have been slightly OTT in suggesting on the last occasion that we torture the person who drafted the Bill as it was, but it was worth it for the look on the face of the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, as I said it. We should make sure that we capture the spirit of previous legislation over many years. I thank the Government for the, shall we say, well-timed and gracious way that they have taken these corrective steps.
Lord Low of Dalston: My Lords, I, too, should like to pick up on Amendment 120. This is quite a disparate group of amendments, but I welcome in particular government Amendments 106 and 120-amendments which deal with issues which a range of organisations representing disabled people have been concerned with and in discussion with the Government about, as the noble Lord mentioned. I have a connection with a good many of those organisations, as president of Skill and now vice-president of the RNIB, so I declare those interests.
Amendment 106 provides a power to extend apprenticeship offers to prescribed groups up to the age of 25, while Amendment 120 provides a power to make regulations setting alternative qualifying criteria for young people with learning difficulties who wish to apply to do an apprenticeship. The idea is to introduce a flexible system whereby those who might not be able to fulfil the minimum requirements on account of their disability will be able to submit an alternative portfolio of evidence that they are in fact ready and able to undertake an apprenticeship. Indeed, the Alliance for Inclusive Education has asked that a similarly flexible approach should be adopted in relation to those apprenticeship schemes-I suppose that they will be called "offers" in the future-that stipulate criteria higher than the minimum. I believe that the Government should monitor such schemes or offers carefully to make sure that stricter criteria are specified only in cases where it is appropriate to do so and are not specified unless there is a clear justification for it.
These amendments are something for which organisations representing disabled people have been asking and they are very much to be welcomed. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Rix, if he had been here, would have wanted to echo what I have said in extending a warm welcome to them. Indeed, he is very sorry that he is not able to be present at this stage and has asked me to associate him with my remarks.
I want to make a few more comments with which I think he would also be glad to be associated. The reason that organisations representing disabled people welcome these amendments so warmly is that they are concerned that the extension of the apprenticeship entitlement to 25 should not be confined just to those with a learning disability assessment but should also encompass the broader group of those with any learning difficulty significantly greater than their peers' but who may not
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The Government have made it clear that they could not commit to such an extension in terms at this stage, but these amendments create the space for future regulations and guidance to be framed using the wider definition of "learning difficulty" to which I have just referred. Ministers are taking powers to permit the use of alternative evidence of ability and to extend the entitlement to 25 for the broader category of people with a learning difficulty, but taking these powers makes a difference only to the extent that Ministers take steps to use them.
In that regard, I want to ask the Minister for certain commitments. First, we need him to commit to a specific timescale. Full implementation of the Bill has a fairly extended timescale, with statutory guidance due only in a year's time. We could easily lose momentum if we do not get moving earlier than that.
Next, I would like to hear a commitment to work with key stakeholders without delay on developing the regulations and guidance-I think we have already heard that from the Minister in introducing the amendments-and on immediate practical steps that can be taken by the National Apprenticeship Service and partners to encourage increased participation of disabled young people.
The reason that that is so important is that the latest data made available by the National Apprenticeship Service highlight the fact that the apprenticeship participation of learners with learning difficulties and learning disabilities aged 19 to 25 is currently lower than that of the cohorts both younger and older than this cohort. That should make it a matter of urgency to work on this following the Bill's enactment, as many disabled young people between the ages of 19 and 25 are ready to enter apprenticeships.
I believe that the National Apprenticeship Service would be open to this, but it will need the support of other agencies, such as the YPLA, and a clear lead from Ministers and the SFA. In turn, providers will need to have adjusted minimum levels of performance, as these can be a real disincentive to recruiting disabled apprentices at present. In other words, there needs to be a clear message from the top that recruitment of disabled apprentices should be a priority, which, I fear, we have not heard to date. As things stand, disabled young people get quite a good deal from the LSC. It would be of major reassurance to the field if the Minister made a commitment that they will receive no less priority under the new regime being enacted under this legislation.
Lastly, I ask the Minister to commit to providing a Written Ministerial Statement on progress made in three or four months' time-in other words, before we have an election.
In summary, I am asking the Minister for four commitments: a timescale for exercising the powers that are being taken under this legislation; to work with stakeholders on regulations, guidance and practical steps to encourage participation of those aged 19 to 25;
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Baroness Howe of Idlicote: My Lords, I shall be brief, as time is moving on. I particularly welcome Amendment 120, to which the noble Lord, Lord Young, referred me when I was speaking on an earlier amendment; the need for those who have a learning difficulty to be treated in a way that allows time to complete their course up to the age of 25 is important.
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