Today's APPG on Apprenticeships aimed to push forward improvements to the Apprenticeship Levy.
Commenting, Richard said:
"I'm the Vice Chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Apprenticeships. APPGs bring together members of all political parties in Parliament and work to highlight areas of common interest to Members of Parliament in a cross-party way, in this case, improving apprenticeships.
"Today, I chaired the APPG Apprenticeships evidence session with over 65 Peers, MPs & stakeholders to look at how we can push the Department of Education to improve the Apprenticeships Levy.
"The Apprenticeships Levy was introduced by the Conservative Government in 2017/18 to encourage larger employers to take on apprentices and up-skill existing staff. It is 0.5% of payroll above £3 million and if the company doesn't use it themselves then it goes to the Treasury and is redistributed to smaller companies to support them in hiring apprentices instead. Additionally, large companies can also transfer 25% of their levy to their supply chain companies, to encourage them to take on apprentices too.
"The levy is broadly working well however, there are some tweaks that could be made to make it work better and especially get more young people benefitting from it as they leave school. The meeting took evidence from: Engineering UK (which represents engineering firms), The NHS Health Education England NHS who run apprenticeships in our NHS, British Retail Consortium who represent retailers and two professors from University of Warwick in Warwick.
"I hope that we can make further improvements to ensure that as many young people as possible get the benefit from a great apprenticeship and that it is increasingly seen as the option for many more young people for their future."