We move on to the next item, which is a statement by the Minister for Skills and Science on apprenticeships in Wales, and I call on Julie James.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and can I also add my congratulations to you on your new role, in an effort to curry some favour? [Laughter.]

I would like to take this opportunity to inform members about the Government’s plans regarding the recruitment of apprentices over the coming months. As my statement today will make clear, we are taking action quickly to deliver on our pledge for a 100,000 quality apprenticeships for all ages over the next five years. Apprenticeships in Wales are delivered on a flexible basis with people starting throughout the year, but by far the largest recruitment drive takes place in line with the school year. Therefore, changes will need to take place with immediate effect, so that an all-age approach can be applied to our apprenticeship contracts for delivery during the school year, which begins in early September.

As you will all doubtless already know, the apprenticeship programme performs very well. Completion rates are consistently over 80 per cent, with many of them up as high as 86 per cent. Feedback from employers and apprentices is positive and the quality of the programmes delivered is rated highly by external assessors. Given this good track record, I intend to keep my focus on quality. We are committing to a minimum target number of apprenticeships over the next five years, but I am not going to be drawn into making commitments to numbers that cannot be delivered, nor am I going to compromise our established record of high quality. I believe in meaningful training that supports career progression for individuals, increases productivity for employers and in turn meets the future skills needs of our country. Our procurement and contracting arrangements and our partnership working with providers has proven to be very effective in our drive to raise standards and deliver high-quality, meaningful training, and that will remain unchanged.

Over the next few months, we are taking action to engage with school leavers. An example is our ‘Have a Go’ programme, which gives young people the chance to use modern equipment and workplace technology in a safe and fun environment. This scheme will be expanded through joint working with schools, colleges, apprenticeship providers and Careers Wales. We have also made additional resource available to our apprenticeship providers to engage with employers and stakeholders to help them to be more aware of existing apprenticeship opportunities and new vacancies. These actions will ensure that school leavers, employees moving jobs and people returning to the labour market are aware of these openings and have plenty of time to apply for them.

I want to ensure that people of any age can benefit from the opportunities offered by the quality apprenticeships we offer in Wales, but in particular those trying to enter or re-enter the labour market. I also want us to build on our established record of high-quality vocational education and training with a growing number of higher apprenticeships. Our higher apprenticeships at level 4 and above provide us with a golden opportunity to develop stronger and deeper skills among our existing workforce, and also to provide employers with the skilled staff they need to boost productivity, innovation and overall business performance. Last year, we saw big increases in the number of higher apprenticeships in Wales—an impressive 22 per cent of all apprenticeship starts. As we increase the number of higher apprenticeships, we will continue to support the broad sector priorities set out by our regional skills partnerships in their annual plans and also the national priorities set by Welsh Ministers.

However, we do want to do more. We know there is a growing demand for us to expand higher level apprenticeships, particularly in professional science, technology and engineering sectors, as there is clear evidence of skills shortages in each of these areas. We believe we owe it to the people of Wales to strengthen progression to higher level skills; we need to work with our provider network to expand their capacity to deliver, including through Welsh-medium delivery.

In addition, we will continue to ensure that those groups currently under-represented are given equal opportunities to benefit from our programme, and we have appointed a quality champion specifically to take forward this work.

I am also exploring how we can increase degree-equivalent activity on the programme, and I will work with the outcomes from the Diamond review to encourage this development. To create a step change will involve new types of partnership working that include schools, colleges, work-based learning providers and the higher education sector. In turn, we will also need to review lower level apprenticeships, particularly where employers are not reporting skills shortages and there is a weak platform for career progression.

We have already asked sector skills councils to ensure that the learning content on our key apprenticeship frameworks is relevant to the changing needs of employers in different industry sectors in Wales. In undertaking this work, the sector skills councils will ensure that employers have a greater input into the design of our apprenticeship frameworks while maintaining a system that is flexible and responsive to the evermore rapidly changing needs of the Welsh economy.

We in the Welsh Government remain committed to the UK’s national occupational standards and the inclusion of qualifications in apprenticeship frameworks, as we know they provide skills that are recognised nationally and internationally.

Last year, the Welsh Government consulted extensively on aligning our apprenticeship model with the needs of the economy in Wales and the wider UK. We published our consultation responses in July 2015. Since that time, we have delayed publishing our apprenticeship implementation plan to provide us with an opportunity to properly consider the impact of the UK Government’s proposals for the operation of the apprenticeship levy in England, and associated changes to apprenticeship standards.

No-one in the skills arena can escape the issue of the apprenticeship levy. The levy is a matter of fundamental concern for the Welsh Government. Today, I regret to say that we still do not have complete clarity from the UK Government about how the planned apprenticeship levy scheme will operate in England and the impact in Wales. While things remain unclear, they should not and do not remove the need for us to seek greater certainty and to begin to plan apprenticeship provision here in Wales in more detail for the first and subsequent years of this new Assembly term.

The plans I am announcing today start the process of delivery on our pledge for 100,000 all-age apprenticeships, as outlined in the First Minister’s statement in May. They also support our longer term vision for how apprenticeships contribute to a more prosperous, more resilient Wales and a more equal Wales.

Apprenticeships are by far the most well-known and respected ‘earn whilst you learn’ option and the returns for individuals, employers and the broader economy are well documented. All-age apprenticeships, together with the all-age employability programme, are central to our proposed skills reforms. Apprenticeships are a proven route to sustainable employment and prosperity. The priorities I have announced today—a relentless focus on quality, opportunities for all, expansion of higher level skills and greater employer engagement—will ensure that this Government delivers on its pledge to the people of Wales.

Thank you very much. I call Plaid Cymru’s spokesperson, Llyr Gruffydd.

Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. May I congratulate you, Minister, on your appointment, and I look forward very much to shadowing the skills aspects of your portfolio, and may I thank you for your statement this afternoon? I will start by picking up on the comments that you made towards the end of your statement on the apprenticeships levy. You stated that there was still no total clarity. I would have liked a little more meat on the bone in terms of the negotiations that you’re having with the UK Government. I would be grateful for an update perhaps on how much negotiation has taken place first of all, and whether in your view it is a matter of a problem in sharing information, or do you think that there is a more fundamental problem in terms of confusion as to how the levy is to work, and the implications of that to Wales. I would also be grateful to hear your view as to whether the levy will be operational within the original timetable, or will we see some delays because there has been some mention of the possibility of delays in England, at least.

And if the levy is introduced in Wales, then there have been some questions as to whether additional funding will be Barnett-ised, and so on and so forth. But if it is Barnett-ised, will you as a Government protect that additional funding for apprenticeships in Wales, or will that funding go into the wider coffers of the Welsh Government?

You also made mention of the clear commitment to create 100,000 apprenticeships over the next five years, and that is something that we support, but there is a debate to be had, perhaps, as to the number of apprenticeships that have been created over the past five years. For the sake of clarity, I would ask you just to be clear that your intention as a Government is to go beyond what has been achieved in terms of numbers during the term of the last Government. In that regard, could you give us an assurance that you are confident that the capacity exists among the relevant bodies to actually achieve that level of apprenticeships? As the commitment you’ve made in your manifesto referred to provision for all ages, in terms of apprenticeships, then can you also give us an assurance that that will have no negative impact on the provision for those under the age of 25?

In your statement, you also say that you want to develop certain kinds of apprenticeships and enhance the participation of under-represented groups—for example, more Welsh-medium provision. There’s a specific reference to that, and we welcome that clearly, but how will we know what success looks like? What will the measure be? Will there be a target? We know that only some 3 per cent of apprenticeships are delivered through the medium of Welsh at present; what’s your Government’s target over the next five years? What level would you like to see achieved in that regard? Then, also, there is there broader question as to how you intend to achieve that. You said, for example, in a statement back in January, during the last Government term, that you were looking in earnest at how you could improve and strengthen the Welsh-medium provision. I would be grateful for some further information on any work that has been done since that point in this particular area.

Dywedasoch hefyd mewn datganiad yn gynharach eleni eich bod yn bwriadu cyflwyno cynlluniau prentisiaeth a rennir, sydd yn amlwg yn arbennig o werthfawr i fusnesau llai. Ni ddylai'r ardoll brentisiaethau arfaethedig effeithio arnynt fel y cyfryw, ond mae'n amlwg y gall y tarfu ehangach gael goblygiadau i'r sector. Efallai y gallech amlinellu'r cynnydd a wnaed gennych ar brentisiaethau a rennir neu o leiaf eich bwriadau a’ch dyheadau yn hynny o beth yn ystod y blynyddoedd nesaf.

Yn olaf, Weinidog, gwyddom fod yr elw ar fuddsoddiad o brentisiaethau yn sylweddol iawn gyda phob £1 a fuddsoddir yn dod â manteision o hyd at £74 dros gyfnod oes yn ôl Ffederasiwn Hyfforddiant Cenedlaethol Cymru, o'i gymharu â £57 wrth fuddsoddi mewn addysg uwch neu radd, efallai yn fwy penodol. Felly, a ydych chi'n cytuno â mi bod prentisiaethau yn cynrychioli un o'r enghreifftiau gorau o'r defnydd effeithiol o gronfeydd strwythurol Ewropeaidd yng Nghymru, gan ddangos budd allweddol a chlir o aelodaeth Cymru o'r Undeb Ewropeaidd?

Thank you for those questions. I’ll start with the last one: yes, about 25 per cent of the present programme is funded by European funds and I think it’s fair to say that without those funds the apprenticeship programme would not be the success it is today. We’ve also benefited from membership of various CVET organisations across Europe and indeed I have attended a conference in order to learn from the best practice across Europe in implementing apprenticeship schemes and work-based learning schemes in general. There’s no doubt at all, in my mind anyway, that our European Union membership has improved both the quality of and our ability to pay for our current programme.

I’ll just go backwards through your questions because that’s the way I’ve written them down. In terms of the shared apprenticeship schemes, we do have a number of successful ones. One of the things that we’re looking to improve on is using the labour market intelligence from our regional skills partnerships, which are really all up and running very seriously now and we’re looking forward to getting their annual plans in any minute now—I think it’s the end of this month, off the top of my head; if I’m wrong I’ll correct myself, but I think it’s the end of this month. What they’re doing is driving regional arrangements of that sort and we all know that they help small employers the most. There was an excellent scheme up in Blaenau Gwent that I attended with Alun Davies, the launch of that alongside the local council, which is a very good exemplar of how those schemes can work.

So, yes, what we’re very much looking to do is have horses for courses. So, the regional skills partnerships will drive a lot of the implementation in their area and that also goes for the Welsh language, because, as you know, there’s much more demand for apprenticeships through the medium of Welsh in various parts of Wales than there is, for example, in Swansea, where I represent, although there is some demand there. What we’ll be doing is working with a network of providers to make sure that where apprenticeships in Welsh are required, or where there’s a skills gap for that, that we can fill that gap with appropriate provision, and I look forward to working with the Member in doing that.

We don’t know what success looks like for that at the moment because one of the things we want to do between now and September is to talk again to all of our stakeholders about exactly that and make sure that we shape the upcoming programme exactly right. What I’m announcing today really is the plan to consult on that over the summer and to come back to this Assembly early in the autumn term with a plan for that.

In terms of the numbers and types that are part of that, I’m not going to be drawn on the numbers because it takes, for example, three times as much money to train an engineering apprentice as it does a business process apprentice. So, if I say that there will be an exact number, it may be that I then have to train more of the people we don’t want than the people we do want in order to hit what would be a false number target. What we’re saying is that there will be a minimum of 100,000. That’s around the level, because it went up and down a little bit over the last Assembly term, but it’s broadly equivalent to the level we had last time. That was a good level. It was assisted by a number of budget agreements with your party and the Liberal Democrats and we’re very happy to go ahead on that basis. But I do very much want to match the provision of apprenticeships to the need in the economy for it and our projected skills shortages.

Then, last but not least, on the levy, we have had extensive communication and negotiation, with officials meeting. I’ve met with the Ministers myself. We do not have clarity. Our understanding at the moment is that it will be Barnettised in the same line as the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. BIS suffered a 17-ish per cent cut, and that would give us no extra money at all, but those negotiations are not yet over and I and the Minister for finance will be talking again in some depth about how we can maximise that for Wales. However, it’s not just Wales. In England, it is clear now that the apprenticeship levy moneys are replacing moneys that were previously in general taxation, and what we’re effectively looking at is a specific employer tax, replacing money that was previously given to this sort of funding by general taxation moneys.

Can I thank the Minister for her statement? Minister, I recently met with the principal of Merthyr college and our dialogue included discussions around apprenticeship programmes delivered in conjunction with employers such as General Dynamics in Merthyr, which, working in partnership with Merthyr college, is creating two new all-age apprenticeship programmes starting in September 2016, when the first staff start taking up their employment at that facility. Those apprenticeships will be in manufacturing, engineering and mechanical fitter/craft apprenticeships. Will the Minister join me in applauding initiatives such as this, which will help to deliver Welsh Labour’s commitment to create 100,000 new apprenticeships in Wales during this Assembly term? Does she also agree that delivering apprenticeships funded by the public purse—and by that I mean both Welsh Government and European funding—through further education colleges like Merthyr could revitalise the further education sector as well as delivering best value for money by reinvesting in the public sector?

Yes, I’m very happy to agree with the Member for Merthyr Tydfil that that scheme is very good. I’m familiar with it. I visited the college myself in the previous Assembly to have a look at some of the good schemes there. What is clear as well is that we have a number of employers who are very persuaded of the need for good-quality professional training, both for apprenticeships and for work-based learning in general. But we do have an uphill struggle, and the UK Commission for Employment and Skills’ last report—because, unfortunately, it’s now been abolished by the current Government—. The UKCES’ very useful last report showed us that, where employers do train in Wales, they are training more in Wales and they have higher quality training. But we aren’t making very many inroads into the number of employers that train—the large number of them who don’t train. So, we will be redoubling our efforts to reach out to the employers through the regional skills partnerships and the chambers of commerce and the Federation of Small Businesses and a number of other partners to bring as many of those employers into this fold as possible.

Thank you. The Conservative spokesperson, Mohammad Asghar.

Thank you, Madam Presiding Officer. I also thank the Minister for her statement today. A skilled workforce enables a nation to prosper in an increasingly competitive global market. It is essential that we develop and adapt our skill base in Wales. We need to address the skills gap and end the inequalities in the existing system. To do this, it is vital that we can mobilise between all aspects of the education system and businesses to help young people to be more ready for work. Time and time again, we have heard how Wales’s students are leaving education without the right skills to help them get on in the world of work.

So, can I ask the Minister what plans she has to strengthen ties between education, employment and especially the business community, to ensure that students have work-ready skills? Strengthening ties between educators and employers can help reduce the gender imbalance in Welsh industries. These closer links could bring young girls into contact with positive role models in non-traditional sectors who can promote apprenticeships as a viable alternative to university. May I ask the Minister what she’s doing to tackle the problem of gender imbalance here?

The Welsh Government is also failing to support older people to take up skills and access training. The older people’s commissioner for Wales has warned about the cuts to lifelong learning and the need to keep our older people in the workforce and to bring them back into work as well. People have achieved degrees when they’re in their eighties, Minister, so why can’t they have some opportunity here in Wales to do the same? Does the Minister agree that apprenticeships should be delivered on a needs basis rather than on the age of the person?

Finally, Deputy Presiding Officer, the Minister will be aware that I recently wrote to her to raise an example of the lack of flexibility in Jobs Growth Wales’s sustainability rate formula. Although this company has had its case successfully recognised, I am concerned that the rigid application of this formula could prevent companies in Wales from being allowed to take on apprentices and from providing much needed training and employment. Will the Minister agree to review the sustainability rate formula of Jobs Growth Wales to ensure that the system works and that the maximum jobs and training come into Wales?

Thank you for those questions. On that last one, I’m not going to agree to review the sustainability formula because we think it works extremely well and is one of the reasons that the programme has been so successful. However, the Member has correctly identified—and I remember the letter very well—that occasionally we have decisions that are not in line with the formula and, on review there, we have examples where companies should’ve been allowed to take a Jobs Growth Wales applicant and, indeed, in the instance that the Member outlines, the review was successful and the company was allowed to go ahead.

However, I don’t think that the odd occasion where the formula hasn’t been correctly applied in the first instance is a good reason to review the formula overall. One of the reasons that the scheme has been so successful—and we are looking forward to the final evaluation of it coming in very shortly; I hope before the summer recess—is that businesses have to demonstrate an ability to maintain people in that job and to grow themselves in line with the Welsh Government investment in the wage subsidy that the Jobs Growth Wales scheme represents. It isn’t a revolving door to take on more and more youngsters and give them unsustainable employment. So, I’m very pleased with the way the scheme works; I look forward to the final evaluation. But I accept that, in some instances, it does need review and, as you saw, we’re very happy to do that review.

In terms of girls in non-traditional sectors, the Member will know that this is a hobby horse of mine as well; I’ve spoken many times in this Chamber on it. In fact, over the next few weeks, I’m visiting a number of workplaces to talk about that alongside ICE, the Institution of Civil Engineers, for example, which are holding a number of events and so on. The Member will also know that we fund Chwarae Teg to do a programme around getting girls into non-traditional industries and promote it in businesses where there are gender imbalances. And, indeed, we have a similar problem in health and social care where the gender balance is the other way around, and we’d like to see more male entrants into some areas of that economy and we’re working very hard to make sure that those opportunities are open to all.

In terms of the all-age point, as the Member heard when I made my statement, we are, of course, committed to an all-age apprenticeship scheme. We recognise that age is not the only reason that you should go on to an apprenticeship scheme. However, we are still targeting 16 to 19-year-olds coming out of school to get into those schemes and we have targets for people wanting to change jobs and people returning to work. The reason for this is that we want to look very carefully at employers who want to place existing employees on schemes that they call apprenticeships, so that we can be sure that they are, in fact, apprenticeships and not a relabeling of an existing training scheme. I think the Member will appreciate why we want to make that distinction. This is about getting people into the workforce and getting people properly trained when in the workforce; it isn’t about labelling something to get a badge for it.

I think, in terms of the ties, what we’re talking about in terms of the regional skills partnerships is very much about bringing education, employers and business communities together. We also run a scheme with help supported by businesses in the community. We’ve run a very successful pilot of that down in Carmarthenshire—I know some Members are familiar with it—and we are looking to roll that out in more areas of the country as rapidly as we can. That scheme is to get good-quality work experience out there.

I would make a plea to the Member and, indeed, everybody else present in the Chamber today and say this: many employers tell me—in fact a very large percentage of employers, according to the UK Commission for Employment and Skills survey, say—that they’d be more inclined to take a person on as a new entrant to their firm if they had good work experience, but a very large number of those people who say that don’t actually provide work experience. So, if you have firms of that sort in your constituencies and regions, I urge you to encourage them to join our work experience schemes and to give that experience to a wider range of young people.

Thank you, Minister, for the statement. Returning to the question of the apprenticeship levy for a moment, you referred to it as an employer tax in your statement. Is there any analysis of the potential risk to jobs in Wales of this levy on employers, being mindful that the point of apprenticeship, of course, is to get people into high-skilled, decently paid jobs?

We haven’t got that, yet. Those of us who were present in the previous Assembly will know that we took a legislative consent motion through to allow HMRC to collect data in Wales and to data share it with us. At the moment, HMRC are the only people in possession of those data and we’re in negotiation with them around the costs of releasing those data to us. However, we do know, in conversation with officials from the UK Government, that it’s proved to be as difficult as we thought it might be, and more difficult than they thought it might be, to correctly identify who works and lives in Wales, because, obviously, we have a very porous border, which many Members will be aware of. We are continuing to push the UK Government very heavily on this, but it has to be said that, even in the English scheme, as proposed, they are clearly replacing moneys that used to be funded through general taxation with moneys now funded through this very specific employers tax.

I wish to congratulate our Minister and the Welsh Government on the continuing strategic commitment to the apprenticeship agenda in securing a more prosperous and resilient and equal Wales. I’m also very proud to have been elected on our manifesto pledge of around 100,000 new apprenticeships, and that’s further to the success of Jobs Growth Wales. I also very much welcome the cross-party consensus that I’ve heard again today over the importance of the apprenticeships programmes, but there’s a very real risk that’s staring us in the face, and it’s already been articulated today. Although I share very much the concerns over the apprenticeship levy, I need to state that 94,000 apprenticeships, as you are aware, over the next four years, are to be supported by £83 million-worth of EU social funds. Does the Minister believe that removal of European funding from Wales via a vote to leave will indeed, as the party opposite wish to see, put at risk such valued and life-changing apprenticeship programmes and consequently put at risk the entire Welsh economy?

I do entirely agree that the loss of European structural and social funding to the apprenticeship programme would be a grievous blow to Wales, but I’d like to take it a bit further than just the money. As I said in my previous answer to Llyr, actually, we’ve benefitted hugely from sharing good practice across Europe and from being able to be part of the European family in terms of developing good vocational training programmes. We’ve visited several countries in Europe that have excellent vocational training programmes. Members may be familiar with the dual qualification programmes in Germany, for example. There are excellent examples in Holland and a number of others that we were able to take advantage of. Indeed, in shaping our own very successful apprenticeship programme, we’ve taken account of those very good examples. I think that’s another reason for not wanting to be an isolated little island on the edge of a very big continent.

Thank you very much. And, finally, Michelle Brown.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I welcome the pledge to create myriad and loads more apprenticeships. Quality training is extremely important, and the intentions in creating these apprenticeships are laudable, but apprentices need work to go to after they’ve finished their apprenticeships. So, without those jobs to go to, the apprenticeship is of personal value for the apprentice, but it’s largely window dressing without a job to go to. So, what I’d like to ask the Minister is: what’s the Welsh Government doing to encourage the production of jobs for these apprentices to go to and to ensure that these apprentices can use their training to earn a decent living? What support can you provide employers to encourage them to take these apprentices on after they’ve finished their training? Thank you.

So, the Member will have heard in my statement that what I talked about is encouraging apprenticeship provision in skill-shortage areas in Wales, as identified through the regional skills partnerships, both for the three regions of Wales where we have the partnerships and for Wales as a whole. The Member may have heard my replies to other Members about our sorrow that the UKCES survey has been stopped by the UK Government. We are in conversation with the other devolved nations about whether we can take that forward on our own, because we used that survey very much to shape our provision, to make sure that we employ apprentices in areas where we know there are skills shortages and, therefore, jobs for them to go into once they’re trained. The Member may also have heard me mention that we’re reviewing some of our level 2 apprentice provision where we know that we are overproviding in some areas and we want to discourage the provider network from providing a very large number of level 2 apprentices in areas where we know there’s overprovision and, instead, redirect their efforts into areas where we know there’s underprovision. That also means—because we know the underprovision is mostly in the higher skilled areas—that we want to encourage apprenticeships not just at the entry level, level 2, or that we want school leavers to go into those, but we want an all-age apprenticeship system that encourages people at level 3, A-level equivalent, and level 4, foundation degree and upwards, to go into the apprenticeship system as well to fill the higher level skills shortages that employers report through the regional skills partnerships and, indeed, actually, up to this year, through UKCES. So, we do have a strategy for that.

Also, an apprentice has to be employed in the first place, obviously, in order to be an apprentice, and a large number of the shared apprenticeship schemes that we have are ways of getting around that by—. For example, Blaenau Gwent—a very progressive scheme where the council is able to act as the employer for a number of shared apprentices for very small SMEs that would not otherwise be able to afford the employment costs. So, we do look at that very much. The Member identifies a very important point, and we continue to look at that through our regional skills partnerships.

Thank you very much, Minister. There we are, we’ve redeemed ourselves and back—I’ve redeemed myself by not running over.