Apprentices with children will not be offered additional support to pay for childcare, the government has confirmed.
Skills minister Anne Milton said the government is “not currently considering” extending support available to college students and sixth-formers to apprentices. She was responding to a series of written parliamentary questions about support for low-income apprentices with children from Conservative MP Giles Watling.
Ms Milton said that, as apprenticeships are classed as “paid contractual work with training”, schemes like Care to Learn are not available for apprentices. The programme offers young parents, aged under 20, £160 per child per week (£175 in London) to spend towards childcare costs. It is available to those enrolled on courses at colleges, sixth forms and schools, but not those undertaking apprenticeships.
She also said the government has no plans to extend the 16-19 Bursary Fund or the Childcare Grant to apprentices.
In February 2017, NUS president Shakira Martin said apprentices were ”treated like second-class citizens”, after research by NUS and Tes highlighted several packages of support that apprentices were denied access to.
Parents of apprentices
In a separate question, Mr Watling asked the skills minister what assessment the Department for Education (DfE) had made about the financial impact for poor parents if their child undertakes an apprenticeship. Ms Milton said: “Parents of apprentices are not...eligible to claim child benefit, as apprentices, like other employees, earn a wage.”
At a meeting of the Commons Education Select Committee last week, Labour MP Emma Hardy said: “Parents of children aged 16 to 18 from really poor backgrounds are also saying that they are put off doing apprenticeships, because they are classified as being in work and therefore they lose child benefit.”
She challenged the government to “have another look at the benefit system and whether it is acting as a disincentive to young people doing apprenticeships”. Ms Milton told the committee: “Wherever I perceive that there is a barrier, I will do everything within my power - including lobbying the minister - to see if we can remove those barriers.”
Mark Dawe, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said: “With money tight, we can understand that there will be Treasury resistance to some of the proposals put forward. Nevertheless, the amount of feedback that we get from providers over families fearing the loss of child benefit suggests that a false economy is being made on this particular benefit and it’s right that MPs of all parties on the select committee are raising the matter with ministers.”
Stephen Evans, chief executive of the Learning and Work Institute, said: “We recognise that an apprenticeship is a job but our research shows that a lack of support, combined with low apprenticeship wages, can deter some young people, particularly those in low income families. If apprenticeships are to support social mobility then we need address this, perhaps through changes to apprenticeship funding - as announced for care leavers - or through the tax and benefits system.”
Bursary for care leavers
The government is, however, extending support for care leavers, who will be boosted by a new £1,000 bursary payment if they choose to do an apprenticeship from August.
A bursary will be paid to each 16- to 24-year-old care leaver - in addition to the £1,000 provided to both employers and training providers who take on a care leaver.
Ms Milton said the government knows those leaving care can face extra barriers to getting an apprenticeship, adding: “Everyone should get a chance to be able to start an apprenticeship and change their life. So I’m really pleased that as we see how we can make the apprenticeship system work better we are able to offer this extra support for those leaving care.”
