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Employment, Universities and Skills and Housing

The Government paint a rosy picture of apprenticeships and of the skills of the nation as a whole. However, there is a great difference between the picture given for external consumption abroad and what the statistics say at home. According to the UK Trade and Investment website, we should wonder why we need this debate at all. Having said that employment is at a record level, it goes on:"““The strong skills base in the UK is reflected in its excellent record of attracting major foreign investors””." Perhaps the website has not been updated for some time, but the reality is somewhat different. Many businesses find it difficult to find staff with the right skills. Five million adults are functionally illiterate and 17 million have basic numeracy problems. Local companies do not need to be told by the Government about the benefit of apprenticeships. Having visited a number of companies in my constituency, including manufacturing and engineering companies, I can say that they know the benefits of apprenticeships all too well. Indeed, at one company the managing director had come up by just that route; he praised his apprenticeship not only for the engineering skills but for the general business skills that it had given him. He became able to see the perspective of the business as a whole, which made him confident enough to carry on as managing director. Many of the businesses that I have mentioned have recently run apprenticeships; such businesses are in the best position to know what type of apprenticeships they need and when in their own business cycles apprenticeships should be taken on. They do not need to be strong-armed into apprenticeships, but for now they are preoccupied with the banks' withdrawal of facilities, the increase in national insurance, the management of cash flows and the staving off of making redundancies among long-serving, already skilled staff. They are battling to try to keep the jobs that they have. The Government talk of demand-led apprenticeships, but clearly they see demand from only one side—that of the individual. Demand also needs to be understood from the company side. Good apprenticeship schemes cannot be conducted in isolation from businesses, but should work with businesses. Hopefully, local learning and skills partnerships provide a route for that. My county council, of which I am still a member, has ensured that its learning and skills partnership is led by a senior local business man, and it is all the better for that. However, businesses—even small and medium-sized enterprises—are not resistant to training. I recent visited a training provider, Henley college, in my constituency, and its representatives were full of praise for how local SMEs were committed to training and employment way beyond the apprenticeship. However, there is a need for business flexibility so that SMEs can choose the best route for themselves. That route will change over time. The public sector is not as behind as the Government like to make out. What they say might be true of Whitehall, but the Minister may like to consider the case of some local councils. My county council now has about 50 apprenticeships, ranging from social care to outdoor education to civil education and some administrative areas.