– in the Scottish Parliament at on 17 January 2018.
6. To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to encourage more young people into apprenticeships. (S5O-01679)
The Scottish Government and its partners undertake a wide range of activity to encourage the uptake of our apprenticeship offer, with a focus on young people.
Through our developing the young workforce activity we promote apprenticeship opportunities to school students and we continue to support Scottish apprenticeship week, our national campaign showcasing the benefits of apprenticeships to young people and employers. In addition, Skills Development Scotland actively promotes apprenticeships through a range of channels on an on-going basis, such as its apprenticeships.scot website.
We continue to offer more opportunities. Last week, I announced to Parliament that next year we will grow the number of foundation apprenticeships starts to more than 2,500 from around 1,200 this year, and we will provide 28,000 modern apprenticeship opportunities, up from 27,000 starts this year. Of those 28,000 starts, around 900 will be graduate level apprenticeships, up from 370 this year.
Despite the various measures that the minister outlined, the Scottish National Party’s record on modern apprenticeships continues to be poor. In 2016-17, there was a decline in the number of modern apprenticeship starts by 16 to 24-year-olds and by young people entering science, technology, engineering and mathematics framework modern apprenticeships. Can the minister please explain why, after 10 years of SNP government, the level of apprenticeships for young people in Scotland continues to trail significantly behind that in the rest of the United Kingdom?
I find that, quite frankly, an extraordinary question from Mr Lockhart. In the last full year for which we have figures available, there were 26,262 modern apprenticeship starts, which was an increase from the 25,818 starts the year before. That shows a positive trajectory.
Over the past decade or so, there has been a considerable increase in the number of modern apprenticeship opportunities across all age ranges. The question is even more extraordinary if we consider that, since we saw the morass of the apprenticeship levy that the United Kingdom Government initiated, today on the BBC the managing director of the Confederation of British Industry, Neil Carberry, said that the Tory apprenticeship levy is the latest example of a policy that is not yet right—Mr Lockhart was not paying attention. The levy has been subjected to criticism in
, which is not an organ of the press that I normally read. On 7 January, the chairman of Timpson, John Timpson, said that the levy is nothing but a tax, and he criticised the process of drawing down funding in England.
It staggers me that, in the first quarter after the introduction of the levy in England, under Tory jurisdiction, we saw a 59.3 per cent fall in the number of apprenticeship starts from the equivalent period in the year before; there were 48,000 starts, down from 117,800. In the first quarter since the introduction of the levy in Scotland, the figures have remained steady and, after quarter 2, we are well on track to meet our targets.