The Mayor of South Yorkshire has been urged to prevent the abolition of a training scheme which underpins the region’s economy and industries.

A council motion has requested Oliver Coppard makes Sheffield an outlier against government plans to scrap funding for Level 7 apprenticeships on 1 January.

Cllr Robert Reiss proposed the motion to take over funding of the scheme, which is a practical-based scheme that equates to a Masters degree and allows candidates to gain work experience alongside a qualification.

Cllr Reiss has a personal connection to the proposal as he works for Speciality Steels Ltd. in Stocksbridge, a company that has a history of taking on apprentices.

The new change to the funding structure would mean only those under 22 will be eligible to receive subsidy for their qualification, a group currently representing only 7% of the people who took up Level 7 apprenticeships last year.

Cllr Reiss said: “These are really important people that at some point in their working life either want to improve their skills, they want to reskill, or they want to have a bit of a change of employment and training.”

Architecture, insurance and medical technology are all industries that rely heavily on the apprenticeship scheme.

The medical technology industry has been particularly outspoken in their opposition to the change, with several industry leaders such as AstraZeneca, Adelphi and Roche coming together to pen an open letter to the leader of the House of Lords, Baroness Angela Smith.

They argue: “The Level 7 Medical Statistics Apprenticeships was created to remove barriers to postgraduate education in a field where a Master’s degree is the minimum requirement for entry-level roles, with some roles requiring a PhD.

“Medical technology is a crucial part of clinical trial and research, an area that the UK is a world leader [in].”

Cllr Reiss argued that this was another reason why it was so important for South Yorkshire to “buck the national trend”.

He said: “You’ve got this labour government who said ‘we’ve got this plan for growth, we’ve got this plan for change’, and then you go around and do this.”

The South Yorkshire Mayor has yet to address whether any change will come within the next few years.

But with a history of championing apprenticeships with initiatives such as The South Yorkshire Apprentice hub, which looks to add 300 apprenticeships to the region, there is hope that South Yorkshire can be an outlier against the change Cllr Reiss stands against.