Speaking to a meeting of MPs at the House of Commons earlier this month, the chairman of EAL (eal.org.uk) the skills and industry awards organisation) said that, if the Government scraps “vital qualifications in new trailblazer apprenticeships,” it risks industrial chaos.

John Hillier said that vocational industry-backed and -developed qualifications are “absolutely essential to prove competence and transferability of skills and to give confidence to employers and customers”.

The Government has decided not to include formal qualifications in new apprenticeship standards, despite the industry groups that helped to mould the standards “repeatedly requesting that they be retained”, Mr Hillier said.

He added: “As industry moves forward to a Fourth Industrial Revolution, chaos could ensue if employers cannot tell what new recruits are capable of. Time after time, employers have requested the inclusion of qualifications.

They’ve always used them, they trust them and they like them, so why wouldn’t they keep using them? The new system of assessing apprentices being imposed by the Government is experimental at this stage; no other European country uses it as the sole method of assessment.

Mr Hillier said that the Fourth Industrial Revolution will result in millions of jobs being lost and millions created, as technology revolutionises the world of work.

“Without qualifications, how are apprentices supposed to show that they can do the jobs of the future — not just the jobs of the present?”