The Conservative Party has promised 100,000 new apprenticeships per year if it gets into power.
At its annual conference in Birmingham this week, it published a document pledging to create a “broad-based, dynamic economy that can withstand global shocks”.
The paper, Plan for a Strong Economy, said radical reforms were needed to help the UK cope with the current economic turmoil and similar crises in the future.
It promised “bottom-up reform of our education, skills and welfare systems to deliver the skills that Britain needs”.
On schools, the document said: “We will break open the monopoly of state-provided education… to provide more good school places.”
On skills, it added: “We will no longer allow people to languish on a state-provided skills scheme that gives them no useful skills. Instead, we will ensure that all apprenticeships are real apprenticeships with actual employers, and fund 100,000 new apprenticeships every year.”
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And on the welfare system, the report said: “We will no longer allow people who could be working to languish on benefits. Instead, we will ensure that everyone who can work, will work. A new system of payment by results will give people the skills that will help them not only get a job but stay in the job and progress in the labour market.”
