The Tories’ apprenticeship farce

When the government “reformed” the apprenticeship system in 2017 they raised a small fortune every year from business to pay for the scheme. The money comes from something called the apprenticeship levy, which means all firms have to pay into a pot and then claim the money back to fund their training. 

But the system is so complicated and difficult that many firms, especially small ones, just don’t bother and treat the fund as just another tax burden they have to pay. Many larger firms are using the money to pay for training of senior managers, rather than young apprentices. 

Therefore, much of that money has remained unspent. As a result the “reform” was such a disaster that the number of places available collapsed. The number of people starting apprenticeships has fallen 31 per cent in England since the apprenticeship levy was introduced. In fact there are now 160,000 fewer apprentice places a year than there were before the so called “reforms”.

It has been a long-running and silent disaster. If the scheme had worked or even stayed as it was there would be almost 1 million more highly trained staff in a country plagued by skill shortages. But it has been a total failure and all this time the Tory government has done nothing about it.

It is pretty rich to claim now that they have a cunning scheme to increase apprentice numbers when they have spent the last eight years doing nothing and when their cunning new scheme will not even rework what has turned into a disaster. To raise the money the Tory party says it needs it would have to close 13% of all university courses, ones it patronisingly calls “Mickey Mouse” degrees – but probably not really useless ones like PPE, Greek or Latin. 

It is depressing to think what that would do to the finances of universities and as I said it is totally unnecessary – the money from the apprenticeship levy is already available, it just hasn’t been spent. 

It just makes you think that the Tory Party wants to reduce the number of people in higher education, which some MPs admit they would like to see; because data shows that the better educated you are, the less likely you are to vote Tory. Shameless is too weak a word.

The result of this cynical policy will be far fewer trained workers and fewer university opportunities for millions.

But still it is far better that the poor are made to know their place from the start. Get on the shop floor, stay there and tug your forelocks, thickos. 

The Tories just love the youth vote, don’t they?