When you are facing a big new problem, the first thing to do is to stop things getting worse. That’s why, in his plan “to protect, support and create jobs”, announced today, chancellor Rishi Sunak has put as much emphasis on the first of those priorities - “protect” - as on the other two. 

What the chancellor says and does matters a great deal, but it will all be in vain if employers don’t back apprenticeships, and keep backing them even when the going gets tough - as it certainly has.

News: Chancellor announces apprenticeship support funding

More: What the chancellor’s plans mean for FE and skills

Background: Apprenticeship starts almost halve during lockdown

Last week, the Maritime Skills Alliance launched an initiative to show that employers are still backing apprentices and backing apprenticeships. Employers from across our sector made a public commitment to support these two pledges.

• We pledge to do everything we can to keep our apprentices in their jobs.
• We pledge to do everything we can to stick with the next phase of our apprenticeship recruitment programme.

Every day since then, we’ve added more names to our list, which now has more than 20 employers on it. I’m confident the list will grow.

Employers must step up

We all know there’s a storm coming. We don’t know exactly how bad it will be or how long it will last, but we can be pretty sure that unemployment will top 3 million, and that scores of thousands who hoped to start a new job this autumn will not now do so. The chancellor’s package does what it can to stave off the damage, but employers too must step up to protect what they’ve created.

Because what we have is good. There are employers deeply committed to investing in future talent through apprenticeships, the rich mix of practical training on the job with a reinforcement of theory that is so well attuned to the needs of our sector.

It’s easy to say that investing in your people is a good thing to be doing, but even at the best of times, “investing” means an upfront commitment of both cash and time - and these are hardly the best of times. Neglect that investment, though, and we will pay later.

Mere words won’t make these problems go away, but we hope that those employers who are tempted to cut the next intake or, even worse, to cut costs by asking existing apprentices to leave, will look again when they see other employers taking a different view.

I was very encouraged by a call last week from an employer I know runs an exemplary apprenticeship programme. Even so, her board is hesitating over giving the green light to the next recruitment round; it’s stuck on amber. “But with this pledge, Iain, and the list of companies who’ve signed it, I’m going back to them to say ‘others have kept to their commitment, and we should too’.” I hope it works.

As this is a once-in-a-century storm, any programme is going to need some adjustment, and we’ve worded the pledges flexibly to take that into account. Bigger companies are better placed to weather storms, and we know that other employees need protecting too; this initiative doesn’t attempt to solve all the problems.

But for those of us who know the value of investing in future talent now is the time to speak up, and to encourage others to hold their nerve. We hope that others will join us - both in the maritime sector and beyond.

Iain Mackinnon is the secretary to the Maritime Skills Alliance