Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:12 pm on 25 October 2022.
Well, Llywydd, I've enjoyed Laura Anne Jones's latest contribution to her leadership campaign, but I have to say this to her: that she will need to slow down on the numbers to allow people to follow the points that she is making. I look forward to reading the transcript so I'm better able to follow the argument that she was making.
The apprenticeship programme—degree apprenticeship programme—Llywydd, is designed to focus on, as I said in my answer, those areas where we have particular needs in the Welsh economy—digital, energy and advanced manufacturing being amongst them—areas where, historically, women have been under-represented but white young men are very much in the majority and, despite our efforts to attract young women into those areas through the degree apprenticeship programme, that remains the case.
What is more important in terms of the question put to me, though, Llywydd, is whether we are attracting through the degree apprenticeship route young people who otherwise wouldn't be in higher education. I am encouraged that over 57 per cent of those young people who come to take up degree apprenticeships in Wales come from families where there is no parent who has ever been to higher education. In other words, we are recruiting through that route people who would not be as likely to have higher education experience by the conventional routes. And in that sense, I'm glad that the Member has welcomed the degree apprenticeship programme, because I think—I don't think I followed her completely here, but I think, when I study her figures, I will find that, actually, it is doing what she wants it to do; it is reaching into those parts of the community that more conventional routes into higher education fail to achieve the penetration that we would like to see.