---

Apprenticeships (EAC Report)

My Lords, I am happy to follow my noble friend Lord Macdonald, who spoke about his five-year apprenticeship, because I also did an apprenticeship but many years earlier than he did. I do not think that mine was as good as his. The important thing is that a higher number of people took those apprenticeships. Not only the quantity but the quality was greater than we have now although we should bear in mind the way in which these matters have changed over the years. The noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, rightly dealt with the Bill to reform the apprenticeship committee. That will be very valuable. I am not sure that it will deal with most of the matters that we had in mind but we shall need to examine it with care. He mentioned the nine reports that we had produced, all of which were unanimous. Much of that success is due to the role that he played as chairman of the committee. The noble Lord, Lord Layard, mentioned the very important combination of the learning and skills experience. It is not only learning that you require but skills as well. The ability to combine them is enormously important and has been very much underplayed over recent years. The number of apprenticeships has declined greatly. In 1988, it was 341,000; in 1996, it fell to 174,000—half the figure that it was only eight years previously. It has risen a bit—215,000 is the latest figure, but I think that it is probably a bit more than that now. There was a very big drop-out rate and it is important to tackle this. At question 354 of the evidence, Sir Digby Jones, as he then was—now the noble Lord, Lord Jones of Birmingham—said: "““We have a lot of apprentices who do not complete the course … If employers were better engaged with schools, let alone colleges, so that it would be a natural progression, it would be seen as part of an education system and not something that is completely divorced from it, that would probably help””." He is quite right in that very useful contribution. It is important to have a link between employers and schools. The education system must take account of that. The major difference that I had in mind was from my experience and that of the noble Lord, Lord Wakeham, when we went to Germany and saw the apprenticeship system there, which was very different from what we have in this country. In the United Kingdom we have a system of apprenticeships that average about one year, and only half of apprentices complete them. In Germany, the apprenticeships last for three years and are important decisions for employers and apprentices; some 75 per cent complete their three-year apprenticeships. There are great expectations and subsequent employment is pretty well guaranteed. In the United Kingdom, such employment is more limited and frequently there is none at all. In Germany, we saw people with great enthusiasm and expectation during their period of apprenticeship. They had great hopes as to what they were going to achieve—quite different from the experience of the sort of people whom we would see in a similar situation here. There is no record kept in the United Kingdom, as compared with Germany. In paragraph 44 on page 18 of our report we state: "““There was strong competition for apprenticeships in the Düsseldorf department store we visited; this was symptomatic of increasing difficulties in Germany in providing sufficient places to meet the demand from young people””." We saw those people and they were impressive and felt that they had a great future ahead of them. Our report continues: "““Currently, around half the age group in Germany enters apprenticeship but often only after a considerable waiting period. We learned that it was normal for young people to improve their qualifications in fulltime further education in order to be considered for an apprenticeship; the average age on entry is now 18 years. The apprentices we met in both the hotel and department store saw apprenticeship as the gateway to further career advancement; they appreciated the support and training provided by the company, less so the courses provided at the vocational school they attended””." That was very important for those people and we do not have that situation here. Apprentices felt that they were successful and had achieved what they wanted. Apprentices here do not have anything like the same feeling of achievement and of the wide opportunity that lay ahead for those in Germany. We cannot copy Germany, of course, but we should have a role in encouraging and possibly in determining the role of apprenticeships. There needs to be in the Government some responsibility for apprenticeship that does not exist at present. Neither the Department for Education and Skills nor the Learning and Skills Council have a proper attitude to this. There is a division between the two departments; they collect information, but different kinds of information. The important thing is that there is no data on the number of people seeking apprenticeships and we do not know how many are doing so. We do not know how many people are being employed in apprenticeships. We do not know how many businesses employ apprentices. This is fundamental information that we should have in order to deal with these matters. Perhaps I may quote from paragraphs 75 and 76 of the report. It states: "““It is clear that many young people who have the capacity to benefit from apprenticeship fail to find a place. There should be an effective clearing house where all apprenticeship places are advertised and through which young people can apply—as for university entry. It should be operated by the LSC … The DfES has neglected to compile any record of young people who unsuccessfully seek an apprentice place and keeps no central record of employers seeking apprentices. No reliable data are compiled on prior qualifications. Urgent measures are needed to ensure both the production of proper statistics on apprenticeship and also effective monitoring””." That is absolutely essential here—to know what is happening and to be able to meet requirements that follow from this. We hear from the response that the review is to look at ways of improving data on apprenticeships. That is pretty modest, is it not? I was hoping that it would be much clearer than that, and perhaps we might hear about that from my noble friend when he replies.