How I helped shape Reform’s plan to get England taking on apprentices

Tell consumers there are 65,000 restaurant tables available, but they’re not much use if the restaurants aren’t willing to cook the food. It’s the same with apprenticeships.

For most of my working life, I’ve been involved with small businesses and tradespeople. I founded and built what became one of Britain’s most recognised platforms for bringing consumers and tradespeople together, so I’ve spent a large part of my life listening to small businesses and trying to understand what makes them tick.

I learnt very early on to ask people what was wrong, rather than simply telling them what I thought was right. What frustrates you? What’s stopping you? What would make this work better for you?

If you listen properly to the answers and keep removing those frustrations, you have a much better chance of changing behaviour. Government needs to approach apprenticeships in exactly the same way.

We have a million young people in Britain not in education, employment or training. At the same time, businesses are crying out for skilled people. We’ve educated a generation where there can be huge competition for graduate-level jobs, while young people can leave university with £50,000 of student loan debt. How have we ended up with both problems at the same time? Something has gone seriously wrong.

We have looked at apprenticeships from the wrong end. Government talks about creating apprenticeships. But before you can create an apprentice, you need an employer willing to take one on. So instead of starting in Westminster and designing another scheme, start by asking small businesses: “What is stopping you from taking on an apprentice?”

I’ve been asking tradespeople exactly that, and the same answers keep coming back. Cost. Bureaucracy. Insurance. Time. Finding the right young person. The risk of taking somebody on who doesn’t work out. And then the big one: spending years training somebody, only for them to leave once you’ve turned them into a valuable employee. Sometimes they then end up quoting against the very business that trained them.

The issue is the size of the hurdles. If they’re too high, small businesses simply won’t jump them.

One tradesman told me his insurance company wanted around £6,000 a year to insure a 19 or 20-year-old apprentice to drive his van. He said if we could solve that problem, he’d advertise for ten apprentices tomorrow. Government may not be able to solve every individual problem, but many of these hurdles could be reduced or removed.

Reform’s recently announced 30 per cent Apprenticeship Wage Credit tackles one of them directly. In the early stages, an employer is paying somebody who may initially produce very little, while another employee gives up productive time to train them. If they’re on minimum wage, 30 per cent is going to help hugely.

But cost isn’t everything. Employers worry about what happens if they choose the wrong person. I’d like to see a sensible assessment period at the beginning, giving both employer and apprentice a genuine opportunity to decide whether they are right for each other.

Then the apprenticeship is successfully completed. What happens now?

Reform has announced a £2,000 tax-free bonus for an apprentice who remains with the business for two years after qualifying. I like the principle enormously. Retention was one of the ideas I put forward when discussing this work with Reform. The more confidence employers have that their investment won’t simply walk out of the door, the more likely they are to make that investment.

But I think there is an even bigger hurdle: employment law.

A tradesman said to me: “I’m a tradesman, not an HR department. I’d love to give a youngster a chance, but I need to know that if it doesn’t work for either of us, we can shake hands and move on.”

Most tradesmen aren’t employment lawyers, nor should we expect them to be. They may not know every detail of the Employment Rights Act, but they understand how the growing burden and perceived risk of employment affects their decision to take somebody on. If government continually increases that perceived risk, we shouldn’t be surprised when a one-man business decides to remain a one-man business. I’m delighted Reform has announced it will scrap the act.

We are not short of entrepreneurs or great skilled trades willing to pass their skills to the next generation. What we need is a government that recognises the hurdles have to be lowered or removed if we expect them to take apprentices on.

My philosophy is simple. Listen to businesses. Ask what’s stopping them. Remove the hurdles. Give them the tools and encouragement to take the next step, then get out of their way.

If we can make Britain’s businesses want apprentices, we won’t have to spend quite so much time asking how to create more apprenticeships.