Mr. William Beausang:

On that point, there is an action in the public service apprenticeship plan that every local authority should recruit five additional craft apprentices to start the process of rebuilding or enhancing the role of directly provided crafts and trades in local authorities. It is a first step, but it is an important first step.

More generally, apprenticeship is an employer driven system, because they employ apprentices and we want them to have - and they do - a strong voice in the way the apprenticeship system is run.

A process is under way under the action plan for apprenticeship, which runs from 2021 to 2025, to establish a new single system of apprenticeship. At the moment, as the Secretary General said, there is the traditional craft apprenticeship system and the new post-2016 consortium apprenticeship system. We are hoping, through that reform, to secure a new system of national apprenticeship which is much more agile, flexible and responsive, while maintaining the quality of our apprenticeships and ensuring they stand up to international best practice standards. While holding to that, we want to create a national system that can respond to the kinds of needs we just spoke about, such as construction retrofit and beyond. That is an important part of the work the Department is involved in, working with social partners.