Cutting apprenticeship funding is the purest Labour folly
Sometimes in Government it is the policy changes that cost no money that can make the biggest difference. All too often, policies are slogan led. 'Record number of doctors and nurses' actually meant bigger bills and lower productivity. The 'size of the Army' without any focus on lethality meant big, hollow forces that were not ready and were not deployable. 'Bobbies on the beat' ignored the growth of cybercrime and fraud to record levels. And the annual war cry of 'record funding for the NHS' seems to do nothing for either patient experience or outcomes.
But one policy, that cost nothing and was made under the last Conservative Education Secretary Gillian Keegan, was the simple act of putting apprentice courses on to the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) hub. Gillian was herself a former apprentice. UCAS has been traditionally where over three quarters of a million students apply for university each year, and it often seemed the dividing line between the two cultures – Further Education and Higher Education. Many have missed the fact that since the last Conservative government reinvigorated apprenticeships from 2010, the growth in this form of study has boomed. Not only do apprenticeships help with real vocational skills, they give students a real working experience, routine and pay. Employers also tell me that those who come up through the apprenticeship route tend to stick around longer with the same employer and have a much better work ethos.
When Boris Johnson made me the 'shipbuilding czar' in 2019 it gave me an insight into the wider maritime industry. I knew Barrow-in-Furness from submarine building and as a Lancashire MP I was used to the aerospace sector, which had a long history of apprenticeships right up to degree level (level 5 and 6). I never met anyone in the Northwest who didn't like apprenticeships. Maybe that is a result of our engineering history or our record of manufacturing. Historically some of the biggest providers of such apprenticeships are aerospace firms such as BAE, MBDA, Rolls Royce and Airbus.
I also distinctly remember a visit to shipyards and the maritime sector in the Southwest. They couldn't recruit: while all the time schools were steering pupils away from apprenticeships, preferring them to study Mickey Mouse courses at trendy universities. There was a real snobbery around even the degree apprenticeships. One FE college principal complained to me that some schools wouldn't even let him in to advertise his courses. And this year I heard about a famous public school in the Southeast whose teachers were so horrified when a pupil wanted to apply for an undergraduate apprenticeship rather than a Russell Group university that they pressurised him to abandon his quest.
This snobbery is ridiculous and risks robbing our economy of the real skills needed. I notice that the UCAS website says a degree apprenticeship means 'you won't always get the traditional university experience.' But who's going to miss childish student union 'sit ins', wokery and the inadequate academics that some universities seem to offer in exchange for nine thousand pounds of debt.
Today's apprenticeships have grown to produce every kind of trained professional from architects to doctors. Some universities work in partnership with employers to provide courses that really make a difference. Our country is desperately short of the skills we need to compete in today's world. I often write in these pages that Defence has to be one of the Government's top priorities, and it does. But if there is a single stand out area that we must reform and invest in, it is Education and skills.
If we want to create wealth, compete on the global stage and attract investment then that is where we must apply effort. This week Labour has yet again struck a blow against growth by announcing the cutting of funding to the highest levels of apprenticeships. That is a truly ignorant thing to do: what we spend on skills we will always get back.
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