To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills how many modern apprenticeships have been started in Preston since 1997. (308655)

Information on the number of apprenticeship starts is published in a quarterly statistical first release (SFR). The latest SFR was published on 17 December:

http://www.thedataservice.org.uk/statistics/sfrdec09

Supplementary table 6.1 shows apprenticeship starts by region, local authority and parliamentary constituency from 2003/04, the earliest year for which we have comparable data.