1. What discussions has the Minister had with the Minister for Economy about providing additional funding to local authorities to promote local apprenticeship opportunities for young people? OQ56999

Apprenticeships help people, especially young people, to improve their skills and careers, and help employers to meet their skills needs for the future. I discuss our ambitious programme for government commitments to support growth, widen participation in training and drive social mobility with the Minister for Economy at every opportunity.

A reference was made by Jenny Rathbone during questions to the First Minister yesterday regarding the acute shortage of apprenticeships in the construction sector, and figures from the Construction Industry Training Board show a decline of 20 per cent over the past year. I've received correspondence from many young people in my constituency who need an apprenticeship to secure their qualification but are unable to find one. One young person phoned every electrician in Carmarthenshire and was unable to find an apprenticeship. I've been referred by the Minister for Economy to the Government's browsing website, Find an Apprenticeship, and I tried myself to find apprenticeships in all fields across Wales. Only 107 apprenticeships throughout Wales are available at the moment on that portal. Clearly, that's insufficient for young people in my constituency and throughout Wales. Isn't there an opportunity to resolve the situation by talking and providing resources to local authorities that have the connections with local businesses and local knowledge in order to incentivise them to offer the apprenticeships that are needed?

Welsh Government's been working very hard to incentivise employers to recruit apprentices to help people back into work and to help the economy to start moving again, and we've recently extended our incentives to support businesses in Wales to recruit apprentices up until February 2022. The apprenticeship employer incentive scheme is a key part of our COVID commitment to support businesses and workers to help them recover from the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic. And those incentives have already seen more than 5,500 new apprentices recruited since August 2020. 

The points you make are well made in terms of the construction industry and other industries that will be particularly impacted by both the pandemic and, of course, Brexit. I will ask the Minister for Economy's officials to have a further discussion with the CITB to explore what more can be done in this area to ensure that there are construction apprenticeships available for our young people in Wales. 

You'll see that our programme for government does have commitments to increase apprenticeships in care particularly, because that's another area where we're seeing particular challenges in terms of recruitment and, actually, particularly for Welsh speakers in that regard. We have a commitment to create 125,000 all-age apprenticeships during the course of this Senedd term and to expand the use of shared and degree apprenticeships. So, certainly I'll explore further with the Minister for Economy and ask for his officials to explore further with the CITB what more can be done in that specific area.

Apprenticeships will play a key role in supporting job creation as we recover from this pandemic, but several sectors, as has just been discussed, are still struggling to recruit new staff members since the end of lockdown. Following on from Adam Price's question and your answer just now, what assessment have you made—has the Welsh Government made—to increase the scope of the Welsh Government's apprenticeship scheme to fill these key skilled jobs? 

Well, over the course of the previous Senedd term, we created more than 100,000 apprenticeships, and that exceeded our target, in fact, but, this time, we're even more ambitious, recognising the need that the economy has for these skills, and we've raised our target to 125,000 starts by 2025. So, clearly we've recognised that there is a great need in this area, and are continuing to invest, particularly in those areas where we understand there to be skills shortages. I've already referred to our programme for government commitment to increase apprenticeships in the care sector in particular.