Debate contribution: Apprenticeships

Debate contribution by Mr Conor Murphy on 5 March 2024.

MLA

Mr Conor Murphy

Party at the time

Sinn Féin

Date

5 March 2024

Type

Debate contribution (made as a minister)

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Apprenticeships

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4252945

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I thank the Members for moving the motion and the amendment. There has been a remarkable degree of unanimity in the views across the Chamber. The support for the motion and the amendment augurs well. I detected from almost all the contributions the need to, properly and publicly, value apprenticeships and the vocational and technical journey as having equal status to the academic journey. Everyone seemed to agree on the need for full usage of and elevation in esteem for further education colleges; appropriate careers advice for young people, rather than just a steer in a certain direction; ambitious targets, as mentioned in the motion; and cross-departmental working, which will be very necessary, particularly given the financial constraints. If some of the approaches that Members have suggested are to be followed through on, they will, of course, require cross-departmental working. I find myself very much in agreement with all those things. The fact that most of the Members who spoke are on the Economy Committee augurs well for a constructive and cordial relationship between the Committee and I over the next three years. I look forward to all that. As I said, there seems to be a great synchronicity in that we are all on the one page.

That is important, because this is a very important area. More often than not, attention is drawn to division in the Chamber, yet here we have a debate that is at the core of how we develop and grow our economy, bring prosperity, create opportunity and create regional balance, and we have found a very high level of agreement right across the parties in the Chamber. That therefore augurs well, although it will not get the focus that it perhaps deserves, because division creates more column inches. My colleague Mike Nesbitt will know that division creates more news coverage than agreement.

Nonetheless, it fills me with a degree of hope and confidence that we have that level of agreement across the Chamber. I have set out, and the Chair of the Committee made reference to, the four key objectives for a new economic vision: increasing the proportion of working-age people in good jobs; promoting regional balance; raising productivity; and the opportunities from the net zero approach. Those are all very much part of this debate. The apprenticeships programme is a key tool for achieving that economic vision, as a people-centred business focused on a route to a good job. Apprenticeships bring significant benefits to employers across all sectors and provide high-quality opportunities for participants of all ages, and, importantly, they offer the opportunity for people to progress their learning and skills whilst taking home a wage and gaining a recognised qualification. For employers, apprenticeships provide the opportunity to grow their own skilled workforce. Our apprenticeships are delivered by a network of providers that includes further education colleges, private training organisations and local universities. The regional network operates on the ground with local businesses to support a regionally balanced economy. The ApprenticeshipsNI programme is well established, with over 130 apprenticeships available at level 2 and level 3, which are equivalent to GCSE and A level. The programme offers opportunities to gain a recognised qualification in a wide range of sectors, from accounting and agriculture through to engineering, pharmacy services and youth work. I am pleased to report that apprenticeship numbers in the programme continue to rise year-on-year. There was a suggestion that numbers have remained static, but they continue to rise. Updated figures produced by the Department this morning show that there are now over 11,000 participants in the ApprenticeshipsNI programme. The higher-level apprenticeship (HLA), to which many contributors referred, has gone from strength to strength since its launch in 2017. Every year, we see new employers joining and existing employers increasing their number of apprentices and the range of job roles that they use HLAs to deliver. HLAs are becoming increasingly attractive for young school-leavers and those leaving college. There are now almost 2,500 people on an HLA programme, studying for a qualification at foundation degree level or above. Higher-level apprentices earn while they learn, making higher-level education more accessible to a wider range of people and creating a pathway into good jobs. Businesses are working in partnership with colleges and universities to develop apprenticeships from foundation degree level up to master's degree level across a wide range of areas — that speaks to the point that my colleague Linda Dillon raised in her intervention — such as health and life sciences, civil engineering, childcare and youth work, and software engineering. We now have over 60 higher-level apprenticeship routes available. That route has been proven to promote regional balance. In 2021, the highest rates of HLA participation per head of population — this answers a point made by Sinéad McLaughlin — were in the Mid Ulster District Council area, the Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council area and the Newry, Mourne and Down District Council area. We can therefore see that regional balance has already been achieved through taking that approach.

I agree very much with that. What we have there is a combination of industries that are organised. We find that in mid-Ulster and Craigavon. There is strong FE provision in those areas: for the southern area and, in mid-Ulster, for the western area. That points to the fact that FE colleges are not getting the elevated status or the full use that they deserve. We could do much more than has been achieved thus far with the colleges. I agree that everyone should be able to access opportunities, including those who have already left full-time education. Introduced last September, figures that have just been published by the Department show that there are now almost 2,000 apprentices aged 25 and above on the ApprenticeshipsNI programme, and that is very good news. All-age apprenticeships create opportunities for people at different stages of life to learn, upskill or reskill, and they allow people who want to change career or rejoin the labour force in a new area to do so without taking on student debt, which is an important factor. However, our levels of lifelong learning are low. We must explore the role of the Department in supporting training for wider age groups in more flexible ways. The Government have a role to play through public-sector apprenticeships, and that has been referred to by a number of Members. Many apprenticeships are already being delivered in public-sector areas, such as civil engineering, IT and operational delivery. The existing nursing HLA is an example of a partnership approach between my Department and the Department of Health, and I want to see more of that. Again, that speaks to the point that a number of Members made about cross-departmental working in relation to these matters, including, critically, with the Department of Education. I have already had a conversation with the Education Minister about that. There will be more opportunities for cross-departmental collaboration in the time ahead. In the absence of being able to directly fund public-sector apprenticeships, my Department has been supporting public-sector bodies that want to develop apprenticeships by sharing knowledge, experience and networks. Apprenticeships can, and should, provide an effective route for social inclusion by creating pathways to education and future careers through employment, but we can do better. Our apprenticeships are male-dominated. I think that that answers the point that Sorcha Eastwood made. Fewer than 30% of apprentices are female. I want to see more women in STEM apprenticeships and high-value jobs, and across the full range of sectors and types of employment. We anticipate that a further benefit of all-age apprenticeships will be a better gender balance. I look forward to seeing the evidence of that. We also know that our disability employment gap is significant. Employers are missing out on talented individuals who are not able to access opportunities. I want to ensure that apprenticeships are inclusive by design, and that they strengthen our workforce and tackle inequality. The return on our investment in apprenticeships should benefit people and businesses in every town and village across the North. I want to ensure that communities are connected in to the apprenticeship system, that information is readily available and that businesses are well supported to take their first steps in hiring apprentices. My Department's careers advisers are at the forefront of communicating the opportunities and benefits of apprenticeships not only to our young people in schools but through the delivery of 50,000 interventions annually across all sections of our community. Careers advisers have undertaken 20,000 interventions with adults in the past year and have a critical role in raising awareness of the apprenticeship pathway. I welcome the ambition in the motion around setting targets. My focus is on supporting employers to create high-quality apprenticeships and helping more people to access those opportunities. There may be some points that I have not managed to touch on in my contribution. As I said, there was quite a degree of unanimity across the areas of ambitious targets, the skills strategy, the FE sector and careers advice. The issue of Castlereagh campus was raised. That is currently a matter for Belfast Met. We do not have a hands-on role in devising its estate. Nonetheless, we are conscious that we need more support for our FE sector. We also need more usage. We have a very good FE sector. There is potential for it to grow and offer more opportunities for more people. I want to see it expanding and growing and the people who work in it being properly recompensed. Those people have argued to be put on the path of equality of pay progression along the lines of teaching. I am committed to doing that. Mike Nesbitt asked about the definition of a good job. Of course, there are varying definitions. That is why we have asked Dr Lisa Wilson to help us in relation to good jobs. She has expertise in that area and will bring together all the available evidence. It is not about creating a definition that rigidly applies; it is about getting more understanding of the range of factors that go in to good jobs. It is not simply about pay; it is about a range of opportunities and conditions that are attached to jobs, some of which include the ability of people to have representation in the workforce, something that has reduced over the years. Pádraig Delargy raised the issue of cross-border apprenticeships. There is a significant degree of collaboration in that regard. I have already spoken to Simon Harris, who is my counterpart in the Southern Government, in relation to the matter. The intention is very clearly to continue the work that has already begun to try to reduce the barriers to people, particularly those who live in border areas, being able to access the education and opportunities that they need. An apprentice in the North can work for a company in the South. Officials in the South and my Department are, as I say, working through some of the issues to make sure that there are no gaps in eligibility. There is a degree of collaboration on that. I am very much looking forward to the formal reworking of the North/South arrangements, because we can achieve a lot of work on the issue in the time ahead. There was a discussion on the apprenticeship levy. It is important to say that the apprenticeship levy is a reserved matter. We have no remit in the payment or the allocation of the funds that come from it. The Department provides £30 million a year to support the funding of apprenticeship training. The public sector pays into the levy but does not have recourse to the funding here. That is an issue that people have identified for some time. It needs to be addressed. It is not a satisfactory situation, to say the least. Steve Aiken talked about the student cap and finances. Of course, the question is how we will fund universities if the cap is lifted and more people attend them. During the debate on the first motion that the Assembly agreed, there was an acknowledgement that we are underfunded and that Treasury needs to work with us to address that. I hope that, in that context, we can work on getting more students and apprentices in the time ahead. Once again, I thank Members for their contributions. As I say, I am very heartened by the strong sense that we are all on the same page. I am very much looking forward to working with the Committee to try to advance and make some progress on all the issues that were raised and, as we all suggested, to have ambitious targets that we intend to achieve over the mandate.

2,131 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 09:50 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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