Cameron pledges 100,000 new apprenticeships » Central Government » 24dash.com

David Cameron will pledge today to tackle social breakdown by creating 100,000 new places for apprentices.

The Conservative leader will unveil proposals to encourage small and medium-sized businesses to take on trainees and help them to learn valuable skills on the job.

Mr Cameron is to say apprenticeships are crucial for improving skill levels, and can also help address Britain's social problems by helping young men to engage constructively with society.

Under the green paper plans, small and medium-sized enterprises would be offered a £2,000 bonus for each apprentice who completes his scheme.

Group training associations would be given adequate funding to help small businesses, such as plumbers and electricians, work together when offering training.

And bureaucratic burdens on employers would be reduced by creating a single funding stream for all apprenticeships, not just those for young people.

Mr Cameron will launch the package at an event in London with shadow skills secretary David Willetts.

Mr Willetts said at the weekend: "Our recommendations are aimed at improving social mobility. Many of our social problems stem from the disengagement of young people and we want to provide more opportunities, particularly to young men, to get them off the streets and on their way in life."

But Treasury minister Kitty Ussher said: "This is just the latest in a long list of Tory unfunded spending commitments and a bit rich coming from them. Under Labour the number of apprenticeships has more than doubled.

"They want more borrowing, more spending and less tax - all at once. The sums just don't add up."

Mr Willetts said he wanted to give "much greater freedom" to further education colleges and social enterprises to run schemes.

He said Gordon Brown had only increased the numbers of apprenticeships by changing the definition of what one was.

"Now things that would have been in the past dismissed as youth training schemes have been re-labelled as apprenticeships," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

The Tories wanted to put more money into apprenticeships that were equal to A-Levels and cut red tape for employers, he said.

If colleges were "liberated" they would be able to perform better in helping local communities.

On the question of families he said: "There is a lot of evidence that if we want people to hold down a stable family relationship, being able to hold down a stable job is a particularly important part it.

"These young men, they are being left to their own devices, not given the kind of practical training they really need so they are not getting into decent work...if you tackle that problem you can really start making a difference."

Richard Wainer, head of education and skills policy at the CBI, told the programme: "I think employers will be willing to take these young people on to do apprenticeships if they have got the right attitude to work and learning and if they have got the basic literacy and numeracy skills.

"Where young people will come up against barriers is where they have an attitude of the world owing them a living. It is there employers will be reluctant to offer them apprenticeship opportunities."

Mr Wainer said the number of people completing apprenticeships had gone up to around 100,000. But employers wanted to see a return on their investment, he added.

Conservative Party leader David Cameron said: "This is a particularly important policy paper as it is one of the areas where the social agenda and the economic agenda come together.

"Getting skills right is about strengthening society and strengthening the economy."

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said apprenticeships had "collapsed" under the last Tory government.

"If there is now an all-party consensus that we need further growth then that is welcome.

"But quality apprenticeships require committed employers, and the test of any new proposal will be whether it secures more employer engagement. It is easy to talk about reducing red tape but if this means fewer checks on quality, then that will not help apprentices."

Susan Anderson, CBI director of skills and education, said: "The business world strongly supports these proposals to cut red tape, help more small firms get involved, and provide high-quality advice to young people by funding a careers adviser in every school and college.

"But we are concerned by plans to divert money from the Train to Gain programme, as this is designed to ensure that public funds are invested in training that delivers improved business and workforce performance."

The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) said it was "happy" with the package.

Spokesman Colin Willman said: "This is timely recognition on the part of David Cameron that 69% of all apprenticeships take place in the small business sector."

The Institute of Directors (IoD) said the Green Paper "contained many positives".

But director-general Miles Templeman added: "The Train to Gain scheme is not perfect, requires greater flexibility and needs to promote higher level skills as well as the basics.

"But the principle of the initiative has great merit and the focus of policy should be on improving the service rather than diverting funds away."