To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that apprenticeship schemes are available to young people from lower income backgrounds.
Answered on
11 November 2020
Apprenticeships are more important than ever in helping young people, including those from lower income backgrounds, develop the skills they need following the COVID-19 outbreak.
To help employers offer new apprenticeships, they can claim £2,000 for every new apprentice they hire under the age of 25 before 31 January 2021, and £1,500 for new apprentices aged 25 and over. Employers can use this funding to help meet any of the costs associated with supporting a new apprentice in the workplace, including uniforms, travel or contributing towards the cost of an apprentice’s wages.
During recovery, traineeships will provide the extra support required by vulnerable young people for them to progress into an apprenticeship or other work. We are tripling the scale of traineeships, providing an additional 30,000 places in the 2020/21 academic year, to ensure that more young people have access to high-quality training. To encourage employers to create new traineeship work placements we’ve also introduced incentive payments of £1000 per learner for the 2020/21 academic year.
Our Apprenticeships Support and Knowledge programme supports schools across England by providing resources to teachers to help them inform and inspire young people and introduce them to the range of apprenticeship and traineeship opportunities, particularly in disadvantaged areas and among under-represented groups.