Miliband delivers apprentice pledge and praises Ladder for the Black Country scheme
Ed Miliband pledged to create a new wave of apprenticeships and called for schools to steer young people towards them as he toured a college in the West Midlands.
Visiting Dudley College on the day Labour was left reeling from narrowly holding on to a seat in a by-election in the wake of a surge in UKIP support, the party leader said he would provide apprenticeships as part of all their public spending programmes.
Under the plans there would be at least one apprenticeship created for every £1 million spent on projects such as high speed rail.
Labour wants to pass a law to make large companies train a new apprentice for each skilled worker they hire from outside the European Union.
It contrasts with the Tory proposal which is to create three million apprenticeships – but funded with a further cap on welfare payments.
The Labour leader praised the Ladder for the Black Country project, backed by the Express & Star, which has seen dozens of companies come together to create more than 122 positions in just over three weeks.
"Congratulations," Mr Miliband said. "It's a brilliant initiative."
Under Tony Blair there was a surge in the number of young people going to university instead of into work.
Mr Miliband said: "What happened was we rightly had a focus on going to university and that's important but the problem is that in the process of that happening, as a country we started to undervalue apprenticeships.
"You have to change the culture so public and private sector organisations are backing them. It's really important that we don't just improve the numbers, we protect the quality. If we don't do that we devalue the brand.
"We are still not good enough as a country in providing apprenticeships.
"We've said if you want to bring in a skilled worker from outside the European Union, you've got to provide apprenticeships.
"That's to ensure the opportunities are there for young people like the young people I've met today."
He said young people should be encouraged earlier than the age of 18 to do an apprenticeship.
"We want more linkage between schools and employers," Mr Miliband said. "But part of this is a celebration of young people and what they can do. Central government is pretty useless at offering apprenticeships. And if government isn't doing it, how do you encourage young people to see the opportunity?
"I think it's about a culture change generally to make it happen.
"Unless young people know there's a gold standard they are working towards it's very difficult."
Dudley North MP Ian Austin said: "We need to make education our number-one priority because the only way we'll attract the new investment and jobs on which the area's prosperity depends is by having the skills new industries need."
Mr Austin also said companies providing public sector contracts should be made to take on apprenticeships as part of the deals.
Mr Miliband also took questions from students at Dudley College about the drive for more apprenticeships.
He said: "So many people I've met say their school did not tell them about the opportunities.
"They found out about apprenticeships under their own steam.
"Colleges are great with linking up with employers but unless they can get the experience earlier then it is difficult to get them to know what's available. The problem is the number of apprenticeships at the moment is static or falling."
Dudley College is currently building a new £7m campus for engineering and manufacturing students.
Classrooms and workshops will feature computer-aided design machines and a robotics suite will also be installed at the college site on Priory Road.
There will also be dedicated training rooms for pneumatics, hydraulics, welding and electronics spread over four floors.
The first influx of students is expected in November.
