A change of government was always going to mean some changes to the way apprenticeships are carried out, especially after the Labour Party’s election manifesto set out several pledges and condemned the Apprenticeship Levy system set up by the Conservatives as “broken”.

Having won the election with a huge majority, Labour can now push through its plans and prime minister Sir Kier Starmer used part of his speech to the Labour Party conference in Liverpool to outline the government’s plans to change what apprenticeship providers will offer.

Among the proposals the prime minister listed was a “rebalancing” of apprenticeships towards younger people, with courses being shorter and restrictions on employer levy investment in level 7 training.

In addition, there will be new “foundation” apprenticeships, which will be paid versions of the kind of unpaid internships halted by the previous Conservative administration.

Sir Kier said the changes would help provide more “flexibility” for employers, but would “also unlock the pride, the ambition, the pull of the badge of the shirt that young people feel when building a future.”

FE Week said it had revealed before the speech that some Level 7 funding would no longer be covered by the apprenticeship levy. Along with level 6 funding, this had soared from £44 million in 2017-18 to £506 million in 2021-22, subsequently rising to more than a fifth of the annual apprenticeship Budget in England.

Cutbacks in this area may, therefore, be among the “trade-offs” that Sir Kier said the government would have to take in its quest for “national renewal” during his speech, although he did not describe them in these terms. Like many other areas, reform may not be accompanied by a lot of extra money while the public finances are tight.

What is clear, however, is that those who may have been looking at one set of arrangements for a possible apprenticeship may now have something different in prospect, such as a shorter duration. That is why it makes sense for candidates and employers alike to discuss with the apprenticeship providers what this will all mean when the new legislation is in place.