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Employment, Universities and Skills and Housing

On apprenticeships, because of the downturn, some employers unfortunately may provide less training. Apprenticeship placements are difficult to obtain, so will my right hon. Friend look at providing expanded apprenticeships in the public sector, particularly the NHS and local authorities, similar to those that we used to have under the National Coal Board, for example, which would take on excess apprentices, knowing that some of them would leak out to the private sector on the completion of their training. However, that did not matter, because it was a nationalised industry, and it was simply a different way of providing apprenticeship training for young people. We need to look at doing more of that with the NHS and local authorities.