Clause 30
Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill
1:30 pm
Siôn Simon (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills; Birmingham, Erdington, Labour)
I said at the time that I did not think some of the figures that the hon. Gentleman asked for were available. We are looking at the others, but we have not got them yet. The latest data are for 2007-08, when 28,900, some 12 per cent., of those starting an apprenticeship had learning difficulties and/or disabilities and 10,900, some 10 per cent., of those completing an apprenticeship had learning difficulties and/or disabilities.
The Learning and Skills Council individual learner record identifies a range of different learning disabilities and difficulties, from visual impairment and mental health difficulties to temporary disabilities after illness. For learners who consider themselves to have a learning disability or difficulty, that field of the ILR records the learner’s main disability. If a learner has more than one disability, the main one will be recorded. It would be best to address the hon. Gentleman’s comments when we discuss clause 82.
To make a little progress I shall move on to the hon. Gentleman’s opening remarks. He wanted to know to what extent we will measure and stipulate the components of the agreement. He said that we had debated those briefly” on Tuesday; we have a slightly different time sense. I thought that we had gone into those matters at some length and in some detail, but I am more than happy to repeat the position.
The number that will be specified is 280 guided learning hours, which is in the SASE document for consultation. We expect that consultation to conclude that about 250 of those guided learning hours should be at off-work stations. We do not intend it to specify exactly what the configuration of those hours will be, or in what year they should fall; that will be a matter for employers to agree with apprentices. We do not intend to stipulate, either on the face of the Bill or in the SASE—as we went into at some length on Tuesday—the amount of time spent in the workplace. As I said several times, we consider that to be a truism: an apprenticeship is a job, an apprenticeship will always happen in the workplace.
The quality issue is partly addressed by having a minimum specification of the amount of time that has to be spent in formal tutored guided learning off the work station. The rest of the quality issues that the hon. Gentleman talked about are in, as I am sure he knows, the document that is becoming legendary in the Committee Room, “Specifications of Apprenticeship Standards for England”, which is currently out for consultation, just in case that little detail had escaped anybody. They can be found on pages 21 and 22 of the document, which the hon. Gentleman described with some wit—if I may paraphrase—as a brief and slim, yet comprehensive and almost elegant document. That is the substance of the answer to his question. Clause 30 allows us to prescribe the form, but does not impose too much detail or too much inflexibility.