Prime Minister unveils new apprenticeship scheme

Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, yesterday announced the launch of a new apprenticeship scheme ‘Skills England’ at the Farnborough Airshow.

In a plan to fix "the very foundation of our country", Keir Starmer announced "the launch of a new organisation that we hope will transform, not just how we train our young people and adults".

He added: "I am delighted that today we’re launching Skills England and appointing Richard Pennycook as the Interim Chair."

Rather than importing skills from abroad, the PM is championing bridging the gap between education and business for young people in the UK.

The PM said: "We are going to make sure that there are highly motivated, ambitious, talented young people who want to work in your business. That is our long-term ambition.

"We’re going to fire up the training of more UK workers and match peoples’ aspirations, which I know are there, with more opportunity. In doing this we will drive growth."

Skills England will work with the Migration Advisory Committee to identify current and future skills gaps and ultimately put in place plans to address those gaps. This will reduce the UK’s long-term reliance on overseas workers.

This comes after major retailers, including Marks & Spencer, made a plea to the government to reform the apprenticeship Levy.

In February, Marks & Spencer’s Director of Human Resources, Sarah Findlater, urged those in charge to make it "simpler for employers to access" the fund. CEO Stuart Machin chimed in the following month, also urging the governments to make reforms.

Sarah Findlater, who is at the helm of hiring M&S 64,000 staff, said the scheme was "too difficult to access, so millions of pounds are going unspent".

She called on the chancellor "to reform the levy and make it more flexible and simpler for employers to access this fund so we can create even more apprenticeships and valuable career development opportunities".

According to Findlater, M&S currently has 200 apprentices but it would like to undertake more if the scheme was simplified and revamped.

In response to retailers' calls for a more flexible Growth and Skills Levy, the new Labour government has promised to give businesses more flexibility to spend funds on the training that they think is necessary.

A Conservative Party spokesman said: “We will wait to see Labour’s plans in full, but by allowing 50% of the Apprenticeship Levy funds to go to other non-apprenticeship training we may see the number of apprenticeships is reduced by half, leading to fewer opportunities for the next generation.

“We hope Labour will continue the good work of the Conservative government, which saw 5.8 million more apprenticeships created since 2010 alongside our education reforms which now find our children among the best readers in the Western world.”