Mr Peter Bedford

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I am immensely proud of my upbringing in a modest town in Northamptonshire. I grew up in a single-parent family with my mother, and she instilled in me the work ethic and morals to learn more, to find out more about the community, and to get a trade or skill—to give me the aspiration to succeed. That is what really interests me in this debate. I believe that apprenticeships, technical training and on-the-job training does instil the aspiration in individuals to better themselves, their community and their families. That is why I am so interested in this debate. From personal experience, working from an early age brings countless benefits. It is a disgrace that Governments have allowed NEETs to increase to the current level. How can it be right that we have 900,000 people aged between 16 and 24 not in education, employment or training? We are watching the next generation not pursuing their next step in life, which is to aspire to something better for themselves and their families. The default answer from Governments over the last 20 years has been to funnel young people through higher education. My right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) mentioned the arbitrary targets, such as that set by the Blair Government to get 50% of school leavers to go to university. But there is another option: apprenticeships and on-the-job training. I am immensely proud of the success of the Conservative Government, who delivered 5.8 million apprenticeships across the country. Those apprenticeships offered young people opportunities for employment. Indeed, 70% of those young people were placed in occupations after training. I also agree wholeheartedly with our manifesto commitment to create 100,000 extra highly skilled apprentices every year over the next Parliament. However, what has gone wrong? While there have been many achievements, it is disappointing that there has been stagnation in that area over the past few years. The challenges that have been outlined in concerns about the Budget will, sadly, not help the situation. I have had representations from bodies such as EngineeringUK and Multiverse, explaining that the crux of the issue lies with the apprenticeship levy. The standards involved in setting up apprenticeships are far too cumbersome, and the funds from the levy are being redirected from employers to classroom training and assessments. It is no wonder that those bodies are moving away from that type of scheme towards academy-based training in-house, in their own companies and organisations. What should we be doing instead? Much concern has recently been expressed, particularly by Opposition Members, about changes to national insurance contributions. I do not see those changes helping the situation. I believe we should be encouraging employers to take on more employees, including by the apprenticeship route, so that when they finish their apprenticeships they can stay within those organisations. Recently in my constituency, a number of small and medium-sized employers expressed to me concerns about the changes in employers’ national insurance contributions, saying that they would incur thousands of pounds in extra costs. They will have to consider that sort of thing when they look at their forward planning and recruitment.