Apprenticeship levy for large companies to tackle skills shortage

THE Government has committed to increasing apprentices, as well as making controversial decisions on higher education funding.

Mr Osborne said that is was a “national shame” that the skills of the 16-24 year old age range were ‘no better’ than our 55-64 year olds.

For those aged 18-21 the Chancellor announced that the Government are introducing a new Youth Obligation that says they must either “earn or learn”. They are also abolishing the automatic entitlement to housing benefit for 18-21 year olds.

He claimed that the government has doubled the number of apprenticeships to 2m and the Government are now committing themselves to 3m more.

They will also be introducing an apprenticeship levy on all large firms.

He said: “The money will be directly controlled by employers and we’ll work with business on how to do this, it’s exactly the sort of bold step we need to take if Britain is going to raise its game” emphasising the need for Britain’s businesses to train up the next generation.

“To fund those apprenticeships and make sure they’re of high quality, we have to confront this truth.

“While many firms do a brilliant job training their workforces; there are too many large companies who leave the training to others and take a free ride on the system.”

The Chancellor said that Britain’s higher education system was “one of the jewels in the crown” of the economy.

He claimed that increasing student fees in the last Parliament did not prevent students from low income backgrounds from going to university. – “a triumph of progressive reform.” He then said that the government will remove the artificial cap on student numbers so that students would not be prevented going had they the right grades.

He proposed the cutting of student maintenance grants, which are reportedly set to double to £3bn in this decade. Instead, loans will be introduced to be paid back once they are earning over £21,000 a year.

Mr Osborne explained their position saying: “There’s also a basic unfairness of asking taxpayers to fund the grants of people who are likely to earn a lot more than them.”

Maintenance loans will be increased to £8,200 and they are planning on consulting on freezing the loan repayment threshold for five years

This will be performance-based, with the student fee cap linked to inflation for those institutions that can show they offer high-quality teaching.

Their plans were met with derision from opposition interim leader Harriet Harman, who said that they were “stagnating” and that the apprenticeships the Government were offering were “skewed towards the lower level skills” when businesses need higher-level skills.