---

Employment, Universities and Skills and Housing

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The overseas students who come to study here are not only welcome but are an important part of our education system. They enrich the institutions to which they come to study. It is fundamentally the investment that we have made as a Government in higher education that enables that to be true, and we need to maintain our commitment to proper investment in higher education and not repeat the mistakes that were made in the not-too-distant past but which too many people appear to have forgotten. Most businesses regard investment in training as investment in their own productivity. Employers spend £38 billion a year on training, which is many times more than the Government themselves spend, so time to train goes with the grain of what good businesses already do. I believe that asking for time to train will often become part of an employee's annual review process, and it will help to instil a culture of learning in every workplace. Apprenticeships, too, are an important way of unlocking talent and building skills in the work force. Ten years ago, apprenticeships were close to collapse. Only 75,000 people started them, and most of them did not finish. We as a Government have rescued apprenticeships. Last year, about 180,000 people started apprenticeships, and we are on target for 130,000 completions a year by 2010-11. Apprenticeships are back. Expanding the number of apprenticeships will help the economy to emerge from the recession stronger. The children, skills and learning Bill will give all suitably-qualified young people a legal right to an apprenticeship from 2013, and it underlines our commitment to entitle young people who have the ability and desire to take an apprenticeship to do so. The Bill will strengthen apprenticeships by establishing a coherent legal framework that will define the programme and set the standard. We believe that fulfilling our apprenticeship commitments will lead to around one in five young people starting an apprenticeship, with further growth for older workers, too. To support this entitlement, we will, through the Bill, establish a new national apprenticeship service, which was called for a couple of years ago by the Lords Select Committee. For the first time ever, we will have a dedicated service for apprenticeships. Investment in apprenticeships will rise to more than £1 billion next year, but we need to take further measures. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) said earlier, we need a big drive to increase the number of apprenticeships offered in the public sector. We have already set targets for central Whitehall Departments. Radical new models of supporting apprenticeships, such as the London Apprenticeship Company, a community partnership including the City of Westminster college and Westminster Kingsway college, are being considered. That partnership intends to recruit apprentices who will be made available as a flexible work force to employers and other host companies. We have also set up a matching service for construction apprentices whose employers cannot keep them on, to place them in new employment and training. We are looking at developing a similar service in other sectors. The Government need to use the leverage of public procurement. When we use taxpayers' money to build a new college, school or hospital, we do not want just to create new buildings. We want to help build the skills base of the construction industry. Following the announcement in the pre-Budget report, whenever Departments and their agencies let new construction contracts, they are now encouraged to consider making it a requirement that the successful contractors have apprentices as a proportion of the project work force. All successful contractors in Building Colleges for the Future, worth £2.3 billion, are now required to have a formal training plan for the project work force and provide access to apprenticeship places. We will build on this approach in other sectors, hopefully including IT, where Government will spend nearly £14 billion this year. The Department for Communities and Local Government is also taking action on construction. The Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill will strengthen local democracy, promote regional and local economic development, and ensure fairness in construction contracts. It will improve current legislation on commercial contracts to provide a fairer system, and more cash flow for construction companies. The legislation will be especially important for small and medium-sized enterprises, which play a key role in local economies. The Bill will transfer greater power and responsibility to regions, local authorities and citizens in times of economic hardship. It is important that decisions can be taken by those who are closest to the issues, and the Bill contains important measures to encourage a more diverse range of people to take up civic positions, strengthening local democracy. The Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Wright), will address many of those topics in more detail when he winds up the debate. As I said at the outset, the Government are determined to do whatever is necessary to support families and businesses through the downturn, and to ensure that we invest properly and wisely now for the upturn so that this country comes through stronger, fairer and more competitive—