David Cameron will announce a Skills Green Paper tomorrow morning that pledges to spend £750m on creating 100,000 apprenticeships.
The proposals, formulated by MPs David Willetts and John Hayes, will be aimed at over 18s and will include offering £2,000 bonuses to employers who train up apprentices and will also ensure that there is a full-time careers adviser in every school and college.
The plans will be funded by diverting money from the red tape that the Government’s current cumbersome approaches to promoting apprenticeships currently impose on small and medium-sized businesses. Willetts said:
"We’re saying to employers we’ll lower the hassle and give you a bigger incentive… If we want stable families there has to be a man holding down a good job on a decent wage. If you can hold down a job you can maintain a family."
The Government launched a draft Apprenticeship Reform Bill of its own last week which pledged to give every school leaver the legal right to an apprenticeship. We’ll update this post tomorrow with details from the speech.
Noon update July 23rd: David Cameron has just spoken about the proposals to a packed room at Policy Exchange. David Willetts gave a neat slideshow presentation and John Hayes, who is responsible for vocational education, also spoke. Click here to download the report.