We now move to the short debate. If Members are leaving the Chamber, can they do so, please, quickly and quietly? Could Members have discussions outside the Chamber, please? We now move to the short debate and I call on Mike Hedges to speak on the topic he has chosen. Mike. 

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Office. I've given a minute in this debate to Jack Sargeant and Joyce Watson. 

On Monday next week, I can register myself as a builder. On Tuesday, I can register as a hairdresser. On Wednesday, I can start a carpentry business. On Thursday, I can start a beautician business. On Friday, I can seek work as a solicitor or barrister. On Friday, the full force of the law will come down on me. Solicitors have legal protection. Under the Solicitors Act 1974, no unqualified person can act as a solicitor. Any person who contravenes this is guilty of an offence and liable on conviction of indictment of imprisonment for not more than two years, or a fine, or to both. I can claim to be a barrister. This has actually happened to Ian Clegg, who fooled the judges and magistrates in Guisborough, North Yorkshire, between September 2007 and April 2008. The law, which was passed in 2007 in the Legal Services Act, makes it illegal to willfully pretend to be a barrister. The offence carries a maximum jail term of one year.  Lawyers, as always, look after themselves. The rest of the people are treated entirely differently. There's no protection against claiming to be any of the other ones I mentioned earlier. 

I mean, hairdressing is totally unregulated. I have been told about the devastating effects of negligent hairdressing treatments, ranging from chemical burns to the scalp and face to loss of hair through misuse of products. The hairdressing industry is currently unregulated. This is a very worrying thought when you consider the chemicals used by hairdressers, who potentially could be untrained and unqualified. The Hairdressing Council, which was established through the Hairdressers (Registration) Act 1964, with the intention of giving status to hairdressers and therefore assurance for consumers, has called for the regulation of the industry. Registration with the council remains voluntary because the Act was never fully enforced. The Hair Council estimates that only around 10 per cent of hairdressers have registered. As the industry is unregulated and no qualifications are needed to practise as a hairdresser, there may be many that are holding themselves out as hairdressers without having any qualifications whatsoever.

There have been attempts to introduce a Bill in the UK to seek regulation. This culminated in the Hairdressers Registration (Amendment) Bill being introduced at the House of Commons as a private Member's Bill. This was, however, defeated in a vote, by 67 to 63, in November 2011. The purpose of the Bill was to propose better regulation of the hairdressing industry, to include a code of conduct and compulsory public liability insurance. The Bill was introduced by David Morris MP, who following defeat said:

'It is very unusual for a Ten Minute Rule Bill to go to division. The House of Commons was clearly divided. I hope that now I have drawn attention to the regulation of the hairdressing industry this important issue will continue to be debated.'

More recently, Nia Griffith, the MP for Llanelli, called in an adjournment debate for compulsory state registration, but that was rejected by the UK Government Ministers, who said registration would cost the industry £75 million. In November 2013, the matter was debated in the Senedd. Keith Davies, the former Member for Llanelli, brought it for one of these short debates. It was noted in the debate that the Welsh Government powers in this area are limited. The Hair Council continues its campaign in the Senedd to continue to raise awareness. I would urge everybody to support the council in lobbying the UK Government to introduce regulation in the area and limit the traumatic injuries suffered by some consumers.

Almost half of all house fires are caused by electrical accidents, and emergencies are taking the lives of around one person per week. Using unsafe and unqualified electricians for electrical repair dramatically increases a person's likelihood of becoming one of these victims. Research from Electrical Safety First revealed that nearly one quarter of people have arranged and paid for work with electricians without checking the electrician's credentials first. Furthermore, one third of people simply used a friend's recommendation when booking an electrician, while another quarter said that they would knowingly hire an unqualified electrician if they were in a hurry. People who need electrical repairs performed could quite easily shoot themselves in the foot by using an unqualified electrician. Electrical Safety First discovered that almost 1.3 million people in the UK needed to pay a professional to fix an unqualified electrician's botched work, illustrating that using unqualified electricians can easily lead to protracted delays rather than speeding up the process. They, of course, are the lucky ones when nothing actually serious happened.

But it's not just consumers who are dissatisfied with the poor work among unqualified electricians. Professionals also complain about the shoddy and dangerous work they have had to deal with. A third of registered electricians polled by Electrical Safety First said that they have noticed the amount of dangerous and substandard electrical work rise since 2012.

Returning to carpentry and general building, the most common reason for an attached and self-supported deck to collapse is the contractor only providing nails between the deck ledger and the structure of the house, resulting in the deck pulling away. Fans of Fawlty Towers will remember the episode of the unqualified builder who Basil Fawlty employed. Over his wife's objections, Basil hires his usual firm of incompetents, O'Reilly's, to do some carpentry work in the hotel room. The hotel is left in a worse condition than when they started and potentially unsafe and there were worries it may fall down. It couldn't fall down because they had to make another episode. This was comedy, but in real life, unfortunately, the same thing happens too regularly.

As fans of the excellent BBC programme X-Ray will remember, we've seen regular reports of shoddy and often dangerous work carried out. The work got carried out by a builder—I say 'builder' in inverted commas. This is because, often, unfortunately, a builder is not always really a builder. It seems that anyone who puts an advert in the local paper or wears overalls nowadays happily calls themselves a builder, and there's nothing that can be done about it. This is the trap for the unwary property owner who takes full responsibility for work undertaken on their property and who's usually left holding the can for very expensive rectification work, assuming the structure is allowed to remain and not be demolished when the builder has flown, denying responsibility or it's simply too hard to take to task through the courts.

There are no legal requirements as such for anyone who wishes to set themselves up as a beauty therapist. The UK beauty industry is unregulated. This means that anyone can open a salon or work as a therapist without any training, qualifications or insurance. The repercussions of this can be extremely precarious. If you were to receive treatment from an unqualified or uninsured therapist and something went wrong or you had a reaction, you may find yourself in a vulnerable position. Thousands of women are potentially putting themselves at risk by inviting rogue beauty therapists into their homes. Some agencies allow anyone to register and advertise for work with no checks. Lauren Shalson, co-founder and director of the reputable company Spa By Car, says:

'Many online beauty agencies offer work or let therapists register based simply on a phone call. How can you safely send someone into a client's home without at least meeting them in person?'

There are people without qualifications who believe they are unnecessary. They self-define as electricians, hairdressers, beauticians, carpenters, bricklayers and believe they're competent as they've been working at it for some time, they've done work on their own house or done work on their own family. I think there's a big difference between making minor alterations in your house and actually going out there and doing substantial work on somebody else's. I really think this is just generally dangerous. I believe that everybody should, when advertising a service, also have to show their qualifications. Qualifications that people have studied hard for should not be ignored. If you want to employ someone unqualified and take the resulting risk, you should do so knowingly rather than unknowingly.

Why does it matter? Beauty therapists and hairdressers can do permanent damage to your face and head. Unqualified construction workers can leave houses dangerous. Removing a load-bearing wall can lead to a house falling down; bad electrical wiring can lead to fires and electrical shocks causing death; and, finally, badly constructed roofs can lead to roofs collapsing and the problems that can exist for anybody who's in the house at the time.

I believe that qualifications are important and we need to protect the qualified from the unqualified taking their work and the unqualified putting people in danger. Apprenticeships allow you to combine work and study by mixing on-the-job training with classroom learning. You're employed to do a real job whilst studying for a formal qualification, usually for one day a week at a college or a training centre. By the end of your apprenticeship, you should have gained the skills and knowledge needed to either succeed in your chosen career or progress onto the next apprenticeship level.

Apprentices in every role follow an approved study programme, which means they gain a nationally recognised qualification at the end of their apprenticeship. They're taught by people who are skilled and know how to work safely. They can identify potential hazards. How many unqualified electricians understand inductance and how to prevent it? We need to ensure that work is done is to a good standard, which is what they've learnt in their two years, four years—however long it's taken them to go through the apprenticeship.

The qualifications, often by City and Guilds, are to a national standard or an international standard that is comparable to standards anywhere in the world. People have worked hard to gain qualifications while doing apprenticeships. They need to be rewarded for those skills and those unqualified individuals should not be allowed to undermine them.

Why, if someone claims to be a barrister or solicitor without qualification, the full force of the law comes down on them, but they can claim to be a builder, carpenter, beautician or hairdresser with no law stopping them? The people I feel for are those people who have spent time, energy and—as everyone knows who has taken exams—worry to train and pass the exams to become fully qualified, only to have someone down the street who's got no qualification, who's just claimed, 'Give me the job. I can do it.' Giving them the job, they can't do it. Thank you.

Can I begin by thanking Mike Hedges for bringing forward this short debate today? I think it follows on nicely from the Deputy Minister's statement yesterday and National Apprenticeship Week the week before. As a former apprentice, I am very proud to have the opportunity to discuss my experiences and contribute today. Deputy Llywydd, I'd like to focus on two things in particular.

Firstly, time-served apprenticeships equip you with the skills to perform your tasks in your chosen trade efficiently, to a high standard, but most importantly, safely, and this is paramount in all trades.

The second thing I want to talk about in the Chamber today is the importance of continuing professional development as part of apprenticeships. This is needed so we ensure that workers can deal with the rapid changes in the economy and the rapid changes within the workplace, and this will be throughout their careers, not just during their apprenticeship. So, they will undertake continuing professional development training to allow them to always complete jobs in a safe manner to a quality standard that we all expect and should expect. 

Can I once again thank Mike for bringing this short debate forward and making those points, which I fully agree with? I look forward to working with Mike and the Welsh Government Minister to ensure we can deliver good-quality apprenticeships for current and future generations. Diolch.

I want to thank Mike for bringing what is an important debate here. I think the key thing here is that this would be welcomed by the industries that have been mentioned because people invest in their futures. It takes time, it takes money, and it takes huge effort, but what undermines all of that are the stories that we hear, yet again this week in the news and documentaries, particularly within the construction industry, about those rogue traders. It really does undermine all the really excellent work that is carried out by really competent people—people that we also invest in as well, because it's one of our flagship policies: investing in apprentices. So, I think it's time to look at really giving some certification and the need to produce that certification every time that you have employed somebody, just in the same way that we've proposed equal certification to be proved by householders when they're now disposing of their rubbish. 

Thank you. Can I now call on the Minister for Economy and Transport to reply to the debate? Ken Skates.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Apprenticeships are, without a doubt, a proven way to drive productivity, prosperity and to build communities that are more resilient. And by building a more responsive apprenticeship system, there is no doubt that we can better respond to industry changes, and that's what I'm determined to do. I know that's also what Mike Hedges, Jack Sargeant and Joyce Watson are determined to do as well. I recall when I was last responsible for the skills portfolio, working to get the hairdressing trade better regulated, and the threat by Mike Hedges to become a hairdresser, I think it was on Tuesday, clearly demonstrates why regulatory control is still very much needed, not just in that sector, but in the other disciplines that Mike rightly identified.

There's no doubt that skills are inextricably linked to the ability to carry out work properly, effectively and efficiently, and as Jack Sargeant said, apprenticeships offer the best means of acquiring key skills. Demand for apprenticeships is changing, as employers seek skills at higher levels, and young people looking towards apprenticeships as an alternative pathway to full-time undergraduate learning.

The apprenticeship programme was never intended to be a programme to be used to fill every possible skills gap in the marketplace. We need to look forward whilst also reflecting on best practice in apprenticeship programmes and delivery. We need to refocus our efforts on skilled technical trades. This will support our aims of securing parity of esteem for vocational education and training, to enhance quality and improve the outcomes for the economy and for the people that we serve. And we want the programme to ensure that apprenticeships support young people, and our focus will be to improve our offer across a range of technical and professional areas, particularly science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and the higher level training will feature more within the programme.

Core to our approach across the apprenticeship programme has been the establishment of the Wales apprenticeship advisory board. This board is an employer-led organisation, chaired by the Confederation of British Industry, and includes large employers as well as SMEs. It provides strategic input, robust challenge on skills content, and advice on the scope and range of apprenticeship frameworks. Our primary focus continues to be apprenticeships at level 3 and above, where returns are significantly higher and reflect good practice in other European countries. We are particularly prioritising the expansion of higher apprenticeships in STEM and technical subjects to create the next new generation of professionals to drive innovative practices, to create new products and to boost productivity levels.

I am delighted to say that in the last year, Dirprwy Lywydd, higher level apprenticeships accounted for 16 per cent of all starts. Last year, we introduced degree apprenticeships and delivery will initially be focused on degree-level skills gaps that have been identified by the regional skills partnerships in digital and advanced engineering.

To manage emerging and latent demand, we have been working with employers under skills clusters in areas such as health, forestry and engineering, and again, digital. In particular, we are driving service improvements in public sectors, working with local authorities, with health service and other public bodies. And to complement this, we're working closely with the Federation of Small Businesses to understand how we can cluster delivery around certain sectors so that small and medium-sized enterprises can better access the programme.

Furthermore, we are creating better jobs closer to home through extending and expanding shared apprenticeships in the Valleys taskforce area to support SMEs and micro businesses in accessing training. We are encouraging SMEs to use apprenticeships by offering an incentive of up to £3,500 to recruit a young person, where the SME is new to the apprenticeship system. All of this is aimed at creating a culture in Wales where recruiting an apprentice becomes the norm.

For young people, getting the right apprenticeship can be genuinely life changing. We are opening up apprenticeships through improving the visibility of what is on offer, and this year, we'll be launching a new IT platform with a range of functions designed to make the apprenticeship journey clearer and far more user friendly. Of course, our headline commitment is 100,000 apprenticeships in this Assembly term—a target we are not only on course to meet, but to exceed. But this isn't just about quality; it's about quantity and it's about ensuring that we get as many young people into apprenticeship frameworks as possible. Those frameworks cannot be compromised by people entering economic activities that will undermine skilled trades, as all of the speakers today have identified. And this is something that the Welsh Government continues to work to prevent.

In the first half of this Assembly term, we have strengthened the relevance, the quality and the effectiveness of our apprenticeship offer. And we all know that the pressures on Wales will increase in the coming years. The age of automation, Brexit and emerging new technologies all demand that we have a resilient training system, and delivering high-quality apprenticeships will help us meet these challenges. Diolch.

Thank you very much. That brings today's proceedings to a close. Thank you.

The meeting ended at 18:26.