Damian Hinds

I am sure it is. I will come to apprenticeships in a moment, but I was just talking about industry placements in T-levels. From speaking to young people who are doing T-levels, colleagues will know that their most popular feature is probably the fact that young people get to do a real role in a real workplace. The placements are also popular with the employers that provide T-levels: first, the employers are investing in the next generation and helping develop all the things the lack of which they sometimes complain about—soft skills and workplace skills—and secondly, the placements are the most fantastic, longest-ever job interview, when employers get to see the people who may come and work in their company over an extended period. I appeal to Ministers to carry on the great work of shouting about T-levels and talking about these great opportunities and the upgrade they represent. There were two big changes to apprenticeships. The first ensured that there were minimum standards. Previously, as colleagues will recall, some apprenticeships were so thin and flimsy that the apprentices did not know they were on one. After minimum standards came in, apprenticeships would last at least one year and involve at least 20% of time off the job. As with T-levels, there would be an end-point assessment, which would feature standards set by employers. The second big change was the introduction of the apprenticeship levy. That has always been controversial with some employers, but it was there to do two things. First, it raises the funds needed to pay for a big upgrade in apprenticeship provision. Secondly, it deals with the free rider problem, with which we will all be familiar: some companies in a sector have always strongly invested in young people, but three years later those young people leave to work for another employer that can offer to pay more but has not made the investment in the first place. The apprenticeship levy deals directly with that free rider problem, as economists call it, so that every sizeable company contributes properly. The new Government plan to change the scope of the levy and to introduce two new types of apprenticeship, which it is fair to say we do not know a huge amount about: foundation apprenticeships and shorter apprenticeships. There is an argument that we already make the word “apprenticeship” do a lot of work—it covers a wide spectrum. Arguably, there are three types of development of self and training, which have different needs: someone may be a career starter, career developer or career changer, and the specifications of the courses and qualifications are different. For example, a 50-year-old who is changing career does not need to learn as many things about what it is like to enter a workplace for the first time as an 18-year-old does. In truth, only one of those types of training is what a normal member of the public associates with the word “apprentice”: we think typically of people who are young and starting out on their working journey. It is totally legitimate to look at changing what the levy covers, and it is good to refocus on young people—career starters. It is also reasonable to say that the levy could cover some things that are not apprenticeships, such as management development or traineeships, but there is huge value in maintaining integrity around what we mean by the word “apprenticeship”, and keeping a minimum length and quantity of college or off-work content. Whatever the Government do with the levy, they need to find a way to deal with the free rider problem. The Government will always be lobbied by companies saying, “We should be able to use the levy for this, that and the other”, but if “this, that and the other” means training that they would have paid for anyway, then the levy will not have achieved its goal. It has to be something that creates a net increase in the amount of training and development available. That brings me to Skills England. Now, Ministers like shiny new things, and some people will always lobby for things to change. A sweet spot is found in public policy when the two coincide: Ministers get lobbied to do something, and they think they have come up with a shiny new thing that sounds like it will achieve those ends. Skills England is one of those things; I am afraid that, without major design change, it is doomed to failure. I have no doubt that plenty of people who lobbied the Government when they were in opposition said, “We need a different approach to skills. We need to think about them across Government, take the long view, listen to employers, listen to young people and have an integrated approach.” The Government have come up with this thing called Skills England, which they think will do that. Skills England will be the 13th new skills agency in five decades. If all it took to solve our skills and productivity problem was a change in the machinery of government, do the Government not think that one of the previous 12 might already have managed it? The instinct in difficult circumstances is to break glass and reach for a quango, but Skills England is not even a quango; it is nada—not quasi-autonomous, but a non-accountable departmental agency—and there is no reason to think it will be any better at working across Government, let alone across the economy, in solving these issues. If the Government were serious about creating something new to join together the Home Office, the Department for Business and Trade, the DFE and everybody else, they would put it in the Treasury or perhaps the Cabinet Office. They would not just make it part of the DFE management structure. Worse than that is the loss of independence compared with the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education. There is legislation currently going through the other place that ostensibly creates Skills England, but it does no such thing. All it does is abolish the independent institute and move all of its powers into the Department for Education. The Secretary of State will now have responsibility for standards for T-levels. Imagine if that were the case for A-levels. If it is not all right for A-levels, why should it be all right for T-levels?