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.