Chancellor John Healey has announced £100mn for a new apprenticeship scheme aimed at connecting young people with employers, as he pledged to usher Britain into a “new age of industrialisation”.
The Local Apprenticeship Service will provide funding to mayors to establish teams tasked with identifying young people and matching them with businesses offering apprenticeships.
Healey said the teams would operate like “football scouts”, seeking out young people who could benefit from an apprenticeship, including those who had never previously been offered one.
“The best thing we can offer a young person isn’t a benefit payment, it’s a first job with training and a wage,” Healey told Labour’s conference in Liverpool.
“Our determination to help, matched by their determination to hope.”
The Chancellor described the initiative as “a down payment” on work by former cabinet minister Alan Milburn to address the number of young people classified as not in employment, education or training, commonly known as Neets, which is approaching 1mn.
The apprenticeship announcement formed the first major element of a speech in which Healey set out his economic vision, arguing that Britain should enter a “new age of industrialisation” driven by investment and job creation.
He also announced that Rolls-Royce would invest £300mn in factories in Derby, Bristol, Glasgow and Rotherham. Healey described the commitment as evidence of “a new confidence in Britain lit by this Government, driven forward by business”.
The Chancellor used the speech to prepare the political ground for next month’s Budget, stressing that Labour would maintain its commitment to fiscal discipline while seeking to provide the economy with “breathing space” and generate “good growth and jobs in more places”.
Healey nevertheless warned that the UK’s fiscal position was significantly more constrained than when he served as a junior Treasury minister under Gordon Brown.
He blamed the Conservatives for leaving behind a heavy debt burden, as Labour seeks to balance increased investment ambitions with pressure to maintain control over the public finances.
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