You are here: Home » Comment »

Celebrating National Apprenticeship Week, established by Labour in Government

March 10, 2013 9:41 am

Author:

Chuka Umunna

Tags:

Share this Article

This coming week – Monday 11 to Friday 15 March – is National Apprenticeship Week. To mark the event, on Tuesday we are holding a debate on apprenticeships in the House of Commons.

On the eve of National Apprenticeship Week Labour has a record to be proud of. In Government we more than quadrupled apprenticeship starts from a woeful 65,000 under the Major Government in 1996/1997 to 280,000 starts in our final year in office. From the 2012 Olympics to Building Schools for the Future projects up and down the country, we linked the creation of apprenticeship placements to public procurement across a number of Government departments. We set up a dedicated National Apprenticeship Service to support and expand apprenticeships. And it was, of course, Labour in Government which established National Apprenticeship Week in 2008.

But, despite all this, as Ed Miliband made clear in his speech on the economy in Bedford three weeks ago and in his Conference speech, we need to do more. Notwithstanding our achievements, two thirds of large employers do not offer any apprenticeships at all in Britain today – this is unacceptable. There are not nearly enough apprenticeships being offered in the public sector given the billions spent on procurement. And, let’s face it, though employees with vocational and technical skills are as important to the UK’s economy as those who have been to university, we do not afford parity of esteem to non-academic qualifications in this country. This all needs to change.

Why? Because, in addition to ensuring that wealth is fairly shared and that we preserve the institutions that bind us together, the third central limb of the One Nation vision Ed set out for Labour at Conference was that everyone should have a stake – that must include those who do not go on to university – and employers are crying out for people with technical and vocational qualifications.

The Tory-led Government massively over plays its achievements in this area since coming to office in May 2010. Their strategy has been to go for quantity over quality and they have engaged in statistical trickery on a grand scale, which masks the reality of an apprenticeship drive that has stalled. For example, my opposite number Vince Cable goes around the country boasting that he has created more than one million apprenticeships but much of this has been achieved through re-badging Labour’s Train to Gain scheme as apprenticeships.

The reality that lies behind ministers’ rhetoric is different from what they tell us. In the last academic year the number of apprenticeships for 16 to 18 year olds has fallen in four out of nine of England’s nine regions and is down by 9,200 overall. The vast bulk of additional apprenticeships since this Government came to office have come in the post-25 age range. As it became clear that the number of apprenticeships lasting less than a year was accelerating in 2011 with their obsession with quantity above all else, we and stakeholders’ in the skills sector had to force Ministers to adopt a one year minimum duration for apprenticeships in 2012 in order to protect their quality.

Shockingly, the Government’s recent apprenticeship pay survey shows that one in five respondents said they had received no training during their apprenticeship, with 5% saying they received no pay during their apprenticeship. And, it is worth noting the Department for Business Innovation & Skills – itself responsible for the apprenticeship policy – has just one apprentice aged under 19 in a department of over 2,500 staff. This is a disgrace.

What would a future Labour government do? Skills are a central part of the One Nation Industrial Strategy we are developing. At Conference we announced the creation of a new tech baccalaureate – it was so good the Government has since adopted it. We also said we would require people to learn maths and English up to 18.

With regard to apprenticeships, we want to put employers in the driving seat in providing these: they will get control of the money for training and set the standards; in return we will expect them to provide many more apprenticeship places. We are consulting business through our Skills Taskforce on how to make this happen.

We will use public procurement to boost numbers – so if you are a company bidding for a public sector contract worth over £1 million, we will expect you to provide apprenticeships in order to win that contract. In particular, we have pledged to use the procurement dispensed on the HS2 project to create 33,000 new apprenticeships. This all builds on the apprenticeship plan launched last year by Labour’s shadow skills minister Gordon Marsden.

Needless to say Labour councils have been leading the way using procurement to boost apprenticeships, from Newham to Sheffield, Leeds to Manchester. To get a sense of our approach on skills if we won power, just look at what these local authorities are doing.

So we can be proud we established National Apprenticeship Week in 2008 and we will celebrate it this coming week. Not for the sake of it but because if we are serious about building a new economic model out of the crash of 2008/9, that means overhauling our skills ecosystem – more and better quality apprenticeships are central to that.

Chuka Umunna is the Shadow Secretary of State for Business Innovation & Skills and the Labour MP for Streatham

Amber_Star

Will Hutton has a really good article about apprentices in the Observer today. Alan Sugar (a Labour peer, would you believe?!) is currently defending his right as an employer to treat an apprentice as a tea-maker & floor sweeper. Apparently employers should be under no obligation to provide any actual training, skills or even mentoring to apprentices.

Sadly, I am thinking that the apprentice business executive will not win her case because she was being paid much more than the usual rate which an apprentice receives. Usually apprentices are paid less than the minimum wage &, if this case is lost, it will send a signal to employers that apprentices can be treated as cheap labour. I hope she wins; if she loses then Labour will have an uphill struggle to ensure that UK apprenticeships become as valuable & esteemed as university degrees.
- AlanGiles
  
  Amber, with the greatest respect I think the “plight” of the winner of a TV reality show is a very different matter from that of genuine apprenticeships.
  
  This woman freely admitted that she was an “overpaid lackey”. Sugar admitted that he did the programme, and offered employment, as a PR exercise for himself, his company and the (un?)lucky winner. In truth, they probably deserved each other. Both seem extremely arrogant.
  
  I am all for bona-fide apprenticeships, but I think the title of the Sugar BBC series is accidental – they might as well have called it “Play-To-The-Gallery-For-The-Public-Show”. Or the Alan Sugar Music Hall. IMO Sugar is vastly over-rated. he had one good idea (1985 the PcW, which made the typewriter as obsolete as gas light), but by 1990 he was trying to replicate his success with a device called the “Emailer phone”, which came to market far too late when more and more people had PCs and could send and receive emails free, and not at 12p a throw with a compulsory daily download to collect all the spam. These days he is a property developer in the main. I would hardly say his manner or methods were a textbook example of how to conduct yourself or a business.
  
  The real thing is not overpaid or a lackey, but the candidate stands the chance of learning a craft or trade right from the basics, and becoming a valuable asset to the company which employs them and to themselves, should they choose to freelance or start their own business.
  
  It is sad that so many people regard an apprenticeship as somehow inferior to a university degree. Often the craftsperson or tradeperson is a much greater assett to the country than somebody who studied a humantities degree. This is down to ignorance, I suspect, both of the public at large and some politicians who seem to think Oxford is the be all and end all of everything.
- AlanGiles
  
  Amber, with the greatest respect I think the “plight” of the winner of a TV reality show is a very different matter from that of genuine apprenticeships.
  
  This woman freely admitted that she was an “overpaid lackey”. Sugar admitted that he did the programme, and offered employment, as a PR exercise for himself, his company and the (un?)lucky winner. In truth, they probably deserved each other. Both seem extremely arrogant.
  
  I am all for bona-fide apprenticeships, but I think the title of the Sugar BBC series is accidental – they might as well have called it “Play-To-The-Gallery-For-The-Public-Show”. Or the Alan Sugar Music Hall. IMO Sugar is vastly over-rated. he had one good idea (1985 the PcW, which made the typewriter as obsolete as gas light), but by 1990 he was trying to replicate his success with a device called the “Emailer phone”, which came to market far too late when more and more people had PCs and could send and receive emails free, and not at 12p a throw with a compulsory daily download to collect all the spam. These days he is a property developer in the main. I would hardly say his manner or methods were a textbook example of how to conduct yourself or a business.
  
  The real thing is not overpaid or a lackey, but the candidate stands the chance of learning a craft or trade right from the basics, and becoming a valuable asset to the company which employs them and to themselves, should they choose to freelance or start their own business.
  
  It is sad that so many people regard an apprenticeship as somehow inferior to a university degree. Often the craftsperson or tradeperson is a much greater assett to the country than somebody who studied a humantities degree. This is down to ignorance, I suspect, both of the public at large and some politicians who seem to think Oxford is the be all and end all of everything.
  - Dave Postles
    
    Absolutely. Gove’s ‘reforms’ will be regressive in this respect. More investment is needed in FE Colleges, to which some of the proceeds of a FT tax could be directed.
  - Dave Postles
    
    Absolutely. Gove’s ‘reforms’ will be regressive in this respect. More investment is needed in FE Colleges, to which some of the proceeds of a FT tax could be directed.
  - Amber_Star
    
    Hi Alan, I think you are describing apprenticeships as they should be – which I agree with – but all apprenticeships are not as they should be. I would like this ‘overpaid lackey’ to win her tribunal case because then there might be less chance of other apprentices being treated as underpaid lackeys instead of being trained & developed!
    - Daniel Speight
      
      Of course after the deindustrialization of the last four decades or so the very word apprenticeship no longer has its original meaning. It did mean that a boy (usually) accepted low wages for up to five years to have a trade that would last him for life. This is not what either Alan Sugar or the likes of MacDonalds are about.
      
      I can still remember when young men left the factory they had learned their trade and become what is best described as a journeyman (a term from the early days of industrialization), taking their new skilled status to the highest bidder for their services. That this no longer exists in any great numbers is a shame on those politicians of all hues who reigned over this period of industry closure. That Germany and to some extent France managed to avoid the same, shows that there was a choice other than the worship of the City’s square mile.
    - Daniel Speight
      
      Of course after the deindustrialization of the last four decades or so the very word apprenticeship no longer has its original meaning. It did mean that a boy (usually) accepted low wages for up to five years to have a trade that would last him for life. This is not what either Alan Sugar or the likes of MacDonalds are about.
      
      I can still remember when young men left the factory they had learned their trade and become what is best described as a journeyman (a term from the early days of industrialization), taking their new skilled status to the highest bidder for their services. That this no longer exists in any great numbers is a shame on those politicians of all hues who reigned over this period of industry closure. That Germany and to some extent France managed to avoid the same, shows that there was a choice other than the worship of the City’s square mile.
    - Daniel Speight
      
      Of course after the deindustrialization of the last four decades or so the very word apprenticeship no longer has its original meaning. It did mean that a boy (usually) accepted low wages for up to five years to have a trade that would last him for life. This is not what either Alan Sugar or the likes of MacDonalds are about.
      
      I can still remember when young men left the factory they had learned their trade and become what is best described as a journeyman (a term from the early days of industrialization), taking their new skilled status to the highest bidder for their services. That this no longer exists in any great numbers is a shame on those politicians of all hues who reigned over this period of industry closure. That Germany and to some extent France managed to avoid the same, shows that there was a choice other than the worship of the City’s square mile.
      - AlanGiles
        
        Good morning Daniel. One of the most inspirational apprentices was Michael Faraday. Coming from a very poor family, with very little formal education he was apprenticed to a bookbinder at the age of 14. He took his work seriously and instead of regarding books just as pages to be put together, he took to taking his work home to read in his own time, such was his interest in continuing to learn. Later he came to the attention of Humphrey Davey, and by his early thirties was becoming influencial in the Royal Institution, and he gave lectures every Friday evening to the public, for many years, because he wanted to share the knowledge he had gained.
        
        Unlike Amber I do not want the “overpaid lackey” to win her case. If we can believe the evidence that is coming from the tribunal, this woman was originally engaged to work for Viglen, after having problems of various sorts with their management Sugar gave her another job in another of his companies, and told her some months later he would not renew her contract, which, in these days of “flexible employment” is his right. She then resigned and claimed constructive dismissal. Perhaps all the poor devils on low paid contracts who get told their contracts would not be renewed should do the same thing, though I doubt that all the press would be interested in their cases.
        
        Frankly I don’t think this woman has much to complain about – by her own admission she was highly paid, having satisfied her desire to show off on TV in a programme which bears as much relation to real life as Coronation Street does to knicker factories(*).
        
        Personally, I would think twice before going to work for AMS – he is proud of the way he treats his employees and suppliers (in the days when he had them), and makes a virtue of his foul-mouthed attitude, but the people who appeared on his programme could have been under no illusions as to what he is like..
        
        I fully agree with Dave’s idea of investing more money into Further Education, to give everybody a second – or third – chance. In fact, frankly, I would be inclined to invest more in FE and slightly less in HE, because in so many cases it would be of greater practical benefit to the student.
        
        (* “Underworld” the serial’s hive of industry, which has six sewing machines, six workers who spend most of their days fighting, gossiping and going on the “cake run” to the local cafe, and which, I am sure is based on dear old Fenner Fashions of “The Rag Trade”)
      - AlanGiles
        
        I just realised there will be a vast ocean of people who won’t have any idea about The Rag Trade (the original BBC series finished transmission 50 years ago this month).
        
        Take a look at this and then drop into “Underworld” and see what I mean:
        
        http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/571142/index.html
      - Daniel Speight
        
        Hello Alan. Yes The Rag Trade, both the program and the real thing are good examples of skills that are mostly gone from Britain today. I knew the industry quite well, being born into in a way, and therefore remember the TV show also, although there weren’t many of the sweat shops that would allow the lack of work and the union presence depicted in it. Many of the women machinists in the trade were highly skilled. Apart from the boss/owner the other male staff, usually only one, was the cutter who would sometimes take a boy to train for a few years. Although not officially an apprentice you could refer to this boy that way truthfully.
        
        I remember reading an interview with a old Jewish man who had been an apprentice cutter and who had been arrested during the battle of Cable Street in 1936 like many other young men from that area. He had been given hard labour in a prison in Bristol if my memory is correct. That’s something the likes of Yvette Cooper should remember about labour history when they beat the law and order drum. Many of our own have spent time in HM establishments.
      - Daniel Speight
        
        Hello Alan. Yes The Rag Trade, both the program and the real thing are good examples of skills that are mostly gone from Britain today. I knew the industry quite well, being born into in a way, and therefore remember the TV show also, although there weren’t many of the sweat shops that would allow the lack of work and the union presence depicted in it. Many of the women machinists in the trade were highly skilled. Apart from the boss/owner the other male staff, usually only one, was the cutter who would sometimes take a boy to train for a few years. Although not officially an apprentice you could refer to this boy that way truthfully.
        
        I remember reading an interview with a old Jewish man who had been an apprentice cutter and who had been arrested during the battle of Cable Street in 1936 like many other young men from that area. He had been given hard labour in a prison in Bristol if my memory is correct. That’s something the likes of Yvette Cooper should remember about labour history when they beat the law and order drum. Many of our own have spent time in HM establishments.
      - AlanGiles
        
        Near where I was born there was a small parade of shops and workrooms, and out of a total of three dozen, at least six of them were little clothing factories (for some reason I remember “Renjoy Fashions”), and because the buildings were so small many of them employed “outdoor workers”. I remember one of my gran’s friends had her machine at her front window, and at the end of the day, the company van (a little Morris) would come and collect her work), and these workshops stayed in operation until the 1970s. There was also one or two men printing shops and panel-beaters, TV/Radio engineers and car mechanics.
        
        It is amazing how things stayed static throughout the 50s, 60s and 70s, and a demonstration of how cheap imported clothing, not to mention throw-away attitudes by manufacturers, and their customers where home electronics products have decimated the small business.
        
        One of the saddest things during the clearance of the site for the Olympics, many surviving workshops and one man businesses in the Stratford, Lea Valley and Leyton area closed because the accomodation these businesses were offered as replacements were too large and expensive to be sustainable
      - Daniel Speight
        
        Yet German engineering relies on small and especially medium sized companies. Here we managed to destroy them pretty well.
      - AlanGiles
        
        Near where I was born there was a small parade of shops and workrooms, and out of a total of three dozen, at least six of them were little clothing factories (for some reason I remember “Renjoy Fashions”), and because the buildings were so small many of them employed “outdoor workers”. I remember one of my gran’s friends had her machine at her front window, and at the end of the day, the company van (a little Morris) would come and collect her work), and these workshops stayed in operation until the 1970s. There was also one or two men printing shops and panel-beaters, TV/Radio engineers and car mechanics.
        
        It is amazing how things stayed static throughout the 50s, 60s and 70s, and a demonstration of how cheap imported clothing, not to mention throw-away attitudes by manufacturers, and their customers where home electronics products have decimated the small business.
        
        One of the saddest things during the clearance of the site for the Olympics, many surviving workshops and one man businesses in the Stratford, Lea Valley and Leyton area closed because the accomodation these businesses were offered as replacements were too large and expensive to be sustainable
  - Amber_Star
    
    Hi Alan, I think you are describing apprenticeships as they should be – which I agree with – but all apprenticeships are not as they should be. I would like this ‘overpaid lackey’ to win her tribunal case because then there might be less chance of other apprentices being treated as underpaid lackeys instead of being trained & developed!
- AlanGiles
  
  Amber, with the greatest respect I think the “plight” of the winner of a TV reality show is a very different matter from that of genuine apprenticeships.
  
  This woman freely admitted that she was an “overpaid lackey”. Sugar admitted that he did the programme, and offered employment, as a PR exercise for himself, his company and the (un?)lucky winner. In truth, they probably deserved each other. Both seem extremely arrogant.
  
  I am all for bona-fide apprenticeships, but I think the title of the Sugar BBC series is accidental – they might as well have called it “Play-To-The-Gallery-For-The-Public-Show”. Or the Alan Sugar Music Hall. IMO Sugar is vastly over-rated. he had one good idea (1985 the PcW, which made the typewriter as obsolete as gas light), but by 1990 he was trying to replicate his success with a device called the “Emailer phone”, which came to market far too late when more and more people had PCs and could send and receive emails free, and not at 12p a throw with a compulsory daily download to collect all the spam. These days he is a property developer in the main. I would hardly say his manner or methods were a textbook example of how to conduct yourself or a business.
  
  The real thing is not overpaid or a lackey, but the candidate stands the chance of learning a craft or trade right from the basics, and becoming a valuable asset to the company which employs them and to themselves, should they choose to freelance or start their own business.
  
  It is sad that so many people regard an apprenticeship as somehow inferior to a university degree. Often the craftsperson or tradeperson is a much greater assett to the country than somebody who studied a humantities degree. This is down to ignorance, I suspect, both of the public at large and some politicians who seem to think Oxford is the be all and end all of everything.
Quiet_Sceptic

Alongside these figures for creation of apprenticeship places we also need to be focusing on the percentage of apprentices actually benefiting from their training and securing a job that uses their skills when they come out of their time. Having employers or training providers churning through apprentices to meet external targets, without jobs available for them at the end of their time benefits no one, certainly not the apprentice. It would be a repeat of what we see in some parts of the HE system.
- AlanGiles
  
  I take your point, QS, but, provided the training the apprentice receives is of high quality, they will accrue skill and knowledge that will last them a lifetime (or until arthritis intervenes to stop you having the manual dexterity you once had ), and they will have the self-confidence that such skill and knowledge brings. They will also, more than likely, be good tutors themselves able to impart their knowledge – and this is important – their enthusiasm – to youngsters for years to come.
  
  Out of work engineer or out of work sociology student graduate?. For me, the former every time.
Quiet_Sceptic

Alongside these figures for creation of apprenticeship places we also need to be focusing on the percentage of apprentices actually benefiting from their training and securing a job that uses their skills when they come out of their time. Having employers or training providers churning through apprentices to meet external targets, without jobs available for them at the end of their time benefits no one, certainly not the apprentice. It would be a repeat of what we see in some parts of the HE system.

Latest

Comment
Why Labour is fighting for the legalisation of Humanist marriages today

By Glenys Thornton

Monday saw the first day of Committee on the Same Sex Marriage Bill, where it became clear after a three hour debate on how to distinguish Same Sex Marriage from so called “traditional” marriage that opposition to this bill has not gone away. Despite a huge defeat on Second Reading, opponents reheated and repeated their earlier speeches, in part because their arguments rely on belief and prejudice not evidence or fact. So we sat until 11pm debating conscience clauses, Registrars [...]
Read more →
Comment
Sometimes what is unsaid at PMQs is the most important thing of all…

By Mark Ferguson

Well that was a bad PMQs for Ed Miliband – the second in a row. Perhaps he hasn’t gotten back into his stride after such a long period without the weekly Wednesday joust, but whatever it is, Miliband isn’t hitting his marks at PMQs. Meanwhile Cameron – who has been jousting with world leaders this week – seemed far more o top of his game than we’ve been used to seeing him lately. Alas the problem for Miliband was that [...]
Read more →
Video
Cameron refuses to answer question on secret government plans to hike interest on student loans

Last week it was revealed that the government discussed secret plans to hike interest on pre-existing student loans, meaning that anyone with a student loan will be expected to pay far more than expected. Today, the Prime Minister was asked about this – he spoke for nearly a minute but wouldn’t answer the question. What does he have to hide? How much more does he expect graduates to pay?
Read more →
Comment
Who benefits? Delivering on energy and infrastructure

By John Woodcock

Across the industrial north, it is striking how old pit villages and industrial towns are proving far less willing to embrace renewable energy than the noisier, more polluting fossil fuels and industries which shaped their identity. Energy companies are getting a nasty shock after mistakenly believing that these communities would not bat an eyelid at a few wind turbines on the surrounding hills because they had been content to make huge slag heaps part of the landscape in decades past. [...]
Read more →
News
Put reckless bankers in jail – Media roundup: June 19th, 2013

Subscribers to our morning email get the best of LabourList – including the Media and blog round up – every weekday morning. If you were a subscriber you would have already received this (and much more) in your inbox. You can sign up here. Put reckless bankers in jail Britain’s banking bosses should face jail if their decisions force fresh bailouts, the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards says today. The commission’s hotly anticipated report urges the Chancellor, George Osborne, to oversee the [...]
Read more →