Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Education – in the Senedd at 1:44 pm on 21 November 2018.

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Photo of Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan Labour 1:44, 21 November 2018

Well, the answer to that is 'a lot more than they're doing in England'. The interesting thing is that the apprenticeship levy is being paid by large companies, and they're given, effectively, tokens to spend and it's only the large companies that have access to the apprenticeship system. There's been such a mess that the actual system is collapsing in England.

We've not gone down that route because we think that it's essential that we do support small and medium-sized enterprises as well. What we're looking for are quality apprenticeships, not just vast numbers, which they're doing in England. So, I think that we can be very proud of the work that we are doing with SMEs. Tomorrow, I'll be meeting with the aerospace industry, where they've come together to provide SMEs across a number of areas—different companies understanding that they can feed off each other. So, we're trying to do a lot more of these shared apprenticeships, so that the burden doesn't fall specifically on any particular small company.