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Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

Whatever is the case, the Opposition are in some confusion on this issue. The hon. Member for Surrey Heath said he had inadvertently deleted a letter from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families asking about the schools budget, so let me remind the hon. Member for Havant that he has yet to reply to my letter asking where the £610 million that is going to be cut from the DIUS budget from 1 April under his party's plan will come from. The House should know, because this legislation is very important. We are making legislation today, rather than deciding on budgets, but the reality is that the ability to make anything of this legislation, and in particular to deliver the quality apprenticeships that so many Members have spoken about, depends on spending, and the Opposition are simply failing to come clean on these issues. The hon. Member for Surrey Heath was also keen to express support for Ofqual. He said he wanted no part in any argument about dumbing down, but he then quoted every single authority he could find to claim that exam standards have fallen, and he did not quote a single one that believed the opposite—although my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Dr. Blackman-Woods) gave us a healthy corrective to ways some evidence can be misinterpreted. I have to say that during the hon. Gentleman's speech I myself began to worry about the standard of maths education. I have not discussed this with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, but I did feel that we should, perhaps, introduce a compulsory new question to the A-level maths syllabus. We should ask students to identify how many ways a Tory spokesman can misuse statistics on apprenticeships in the course of a single debate. Let us have a look at the record. We have heard a number of times the claim that there are fewer advanced apprenticeships than a decade ago. The hon. Member for Havant wrote to his colleagues on 19 February saying that the number of advanced apprenticeships has fallen to just 97,000. That is not a figure I recognise, but let us be clear about this. The Conservative party never used to bother to find out who completed an apprenticeship; it never took any notice of that. What is the truth? In the first year for which we have statistics for the completion of advanced apprenticeships, 18,400 were completed. In the last year for which we have statistics, 36,200 advanced apprenticeships were completed—twice as many people completing advanced apprenticeships under this Government than under the previous Government. The number of people starting advanced apprenticeships rose by 29 per cent. in the last full year. That is the truth about advanced apprenticeships, and it is a disgrace that the Opposition seek to misuse and selectively quote figures in order to try to make a case that simply does not stand up.