Mr. Brian Nolan:

I would ask that any reform is handled with care. We have a brilliant, world-class system. Let us take the best of that and try to improve on that. On small changes, since I do not want to overrun in this one paragraph, I would ask that the small changes be addressed and given real consideration. There should be a move to address the national minimum wage, abolish the student charge and deal with the training allowances, which need to be updated. Those would be the simple reforms that we would seek. We believe that would make the apprenticeship more robust. Of course it would attract more people, but it might also work for the employers. I believe it does. I would argue, from our experience as a union, that employers have supported, in the main, our call to move towards the minimum wage. We have negotiated that in workplaces, so it is about time the rest of the apprenticeships caught up with that.