Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:50 pm on 12 March 2019.
Thank you. I think there were six questions there—I'll try my best to briefly answer those.
Your first point about private training providers and was there an argument for a mixed economy and moving to a different provision—I think that's a very interesting idea. I'd certainly welcome the opportunity to see more social enterprises and co-operatives providing training, and I'd be interested in discussing that further and receiving any ideas that Bethan Jenkins has.
Your question about the procurement exercise for Working Wales—that has been delayed because of a concern about the evaluation methodology that was used and, based on legal advice, we've decided to rerun the framework. That's why there was the delay.
On the question of the Welsh language, the figures I have is that in 2016-17, just over 4 per cent of apprenticeships were formally assessed in Welsh, and an additional 8 per cent used Welsh in some part of their training. And I think one of the challenges we have is the number of people who are willing to do the whole of their apprenticeship though the medium of Welsh. But we are working with Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol in seeing what more we can do, and a plan was published in December, setting out some steps. So, we're certainly not being complacent about that.
The question on the women apprenticeships was well made—I certainly agree with the sentiment. There are a number of different initiatives in this area already, but we can certainly do more, and I'd be happy to write and set out some of the activity we currently have in place, and if you have suggestions for more that we can do, we'd certainly welcome the opportunity to discuss that too.
You mentioned the case for free transport. As you know, we have a White Paper currently under consultation for the future of transport in Wales. It's tempting to look at different groups and suggest that free transport would be beneficial for them, as undoubtedly it would, but I think we need to take a more strategic judgment about how we structure the future of public transport in Wales, and whether or not there's a role for free transport for the whole population or sections of the population as part of that. Certainly, there are no options off the table on that, as we look at strengthening our public transport sector.
And, finally, on degree apprenticeships—I'm sure universities are angry, because, in England, as I mentioned, the programme has wildly overspent, and one of the reasons for that is employers are classing things like MBAs, for example, as apprenticeships. So, they're spending merrily on such programmes, blowing the budget as they go. So, universities are doing extremely well out of it in England. You'll forgive us for not following in that—what we think—hedonistic manner, and that we instead take an evidence-based approach on what we think is the right strategic fit for the Welsh economy. We've started with digital as a degree apprenticeship, we're about to launch engineering, and we're looking at other areas. But we think we're right to be taking a more methodical and strategic approach rather than simply recategorising degree courses as apprenticeships to deal with this voucher system they have in England, which I'm sure universities would like us to do, but we're going to take a different approach in Wales.