Apprenticeships focus of election campaigns

20 Feb 2015

Labour leader Ed Miliband has promised to create 80,000 new apprenticeships, should the party win the general election in May.

The proposal is to make available a high-quality apprenticeship to every school leaver who gets the necessary grades, providing level 3 qualifications or above, with each placement lasting at least two years.

Mr Miliband said: ‘It is time to match the aspirations of our young people with the high quality apprenticeships they deserve.

‘So under the next Labour government, if you get the grades at 18 you will be guaranteed an apprenticeship. This is what I mean by a better plan for working people, a better plan for Britain’.

A spokesperson for the Conservative party said that 2.1 million apprenticeships had been created since the coalition Government, with most of those going to individuals under the age of 25. They added that an average of 87,000 more young people are opting for this route to employment.

Mr Miliband continued: ‘Our plan is based on the idea that it is only when Britain’s working families succeed that Britain succeeds. Not the old idea that it is only from the top down that wealth flows’.