6. 5. Statement: Apprenticeships in Wales

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:23 pm on 14 June 2016.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 4:23, 14 June 2016

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.