Pay apprentices at least the national minimum pay for their age range

This is important because apprentices are being used as normal employees and worked just as hard but don't recieve the same benefits as a normal employee. We wouldn't expect someone who is changing their career to be paid £3.70 an hour so why is it acceptable to pay an apprentice this. You hire an apprentice in hopes of taking them on at the end so you must have the financial resource ready for them after anyway. It is discriminating against people in low income households because receiving less than minimum wage means they don't have enough money to live on and if they don't have the money to fall back on from parents/gardians people won't do an apprenticeship and therefor won't be trained up in the job they want to do. While someone is doing an apprenticeship they should also be learning about what it is like in the working world and preparing for their future careers but paying them so little doesn't give them the resources and incentive to do this. Increasing the apprenticeship pay to minimum wage will encourage young people to get trained in skills and will add more skilled workers to our workforce