This afternoon, Gillian Keegan was appointed as a parliamentary under secretary of state at the Department for Education - and Tes understands her remit is likely to include apprenticeships and skills.  

According to her website, Ms Keegan is the only degree-level apprentice currently sitting in the House of Commons. Having left school at 16, she began a degree-level apprenticeship at Delco Electronics, a car factory in Kirby, Merseyside - gaining a degree in business studies at Liverpool John Moores University. 

She also spent a year studying a Sloan Fellowship master’s degree at London Business School. 

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Interest in apprenticeships

The MP for Chichester, who was elected to parliament in 2017, sat on Westminster’s public accounts select committee until December 2018. She was appointed parliamentary private secretary to the Treasury, and later held the same role at the Ministry of Defence and the Department for Health and Social Care.

In February last year, then skills-minister Anne Milton appointed her as an MP Apprenticeship Ambassador, with responsibility to support apprenticeship schemes and promote them within parliament and across to businesses. She also is the co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for apprentices. 

On 15 January of this year, she submitted a question to the prime minister about when planned to make an announcement on changes to the levy.