Conservative Conference: Welfare cuts will 'support new wave of apprentices'

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As far as starts to the final autumn conference before the General Election go, it was not the best.

Grant Shapps is not reading these stories over his Weetabix. He's talking to the Express & Star and setting out the case for a Tory majority next year. The job of fixing the economy, he says, is only 'half done'.

"No-one's going to pretend it's the way you want to start a conference or any day but in politics the political weather can be a bit choppy," he shrugs.

"Today's one of those days. It's not what's going to determine the outcome of the next election."

He moves seamlessly to the topic he really wants to discuss - the three million apprenticeships the Tories say they want to create, paid for by a further cut in the maximum amount someone can receive in welfare.

They already capped it at £26,000 a year. David Cameron now wants to see that come down to £23,000.

Mr Shapps says: "In the end, if you're a young person with an apprenticeship, that's the thing you'll remember, not some MP that no-one's ever heard of defecting to a party that makes it less likely that you'll get the thing you might have wanted, a referendum on Europe."

And that's as much as he has to say about Mr Reckless, who infuriated his colleagues with his defection, mere hours after campaigning against UKIP.

Asked if there had been too great an emphasis on young people going to university, at the expense of apprenticeships, 46-year-old Mr Shapps says: "I don't think it's a case of either or. The truth is that apprenticeships of high quality can be right for an enormous number of people. And they're good for the economy too. They mean people don't get caught in traps like welfare.

"Speaking as someone who didn't get any A-levels and went to a polytechnic and didn't get a degree (he got a higher national diploma), I'm the first person to believe that not everyone's future relies on getting stacked up with degrees and qualifications. Sometimes life qualifications of going into business can be far more important.

"Apprenticeships open up a route that may not be available through more formal studies."

The West Midlands is going to be an essential battleground for the Conservatives. They won seats in the Black Country - particularly three out of four in the Dudley borough, but also in Cannock Chase, Stafford, Wolverhampton South West and Wyre Forest - that they have to hold on to if they are to have any hope of gaining the majority that eluded David Cameron in 2010.

Mr Shapps hopes the drive towards apprenticeships, getting young people into work, will resonate with voters in this industrial heartland.

"Black Country and West Midlands manufacturing jobs are these days high tech and advanced," says the MP for Welwyn Hatfield. "These are the drivers of our economic growth and importantly our exports. We can't survive in the world unless we're exporting.

"It's brilliant for the individual who gets proper, paid training and experience. It's brilliant for the companies who employ apprentices and the country benefits from a higher skilled workforce."

Labour claims many of the new jobs the Tories have presided over are low paid and 'zero hours' - where workers have no fixed hours and are uncertain of what they will make from one week to the next.

Mr Shapps says: "Employees say they want the flexibility. What is unacceptable is locking down zero hours contracts so you can't have any other employment. That should be the employee's choice. That and some other sharp practices, we will put a stop to. We'll make sure those contracts can't exist."

Now we come to the well trodden path, the case for keeping Mr Cameron in Number 10 and not giving Labour the chance to run the country after just one term in opposition.

"We have a serious long term plan," Mr Shapps says." A Conservative government has meant you and your family had the opportunity to recover from Labour's great recession. The next five years, that's all up for grabs. We could go backwards to borrowing that cash and putting the country on the edge."

But it is not just a case of Labour v Tory. UKIP has done well in recent elections. At the very least, it can distort the result.

"UKIP are a reality," Mr Shapps concedes. "It's not going to be a UKIP Prime Minister after the next election. In the end in 200 days people are going to have to think about who they want running the country. On all those grounds people will deduce it's David Cameron. He has that sense of grip and purpose. What we need in an uncertain world is a Prime Minister who is able to stand up for Britain."

Labour councils are complaining bitterly of the cuts they have had to endure and the services they have had to reduce. Will this hit the Tories next year?

"It's disingenuous," Mr Shapps says. "Labour are the ones who racked up the biggest peacetime debt and created the misery for families. We've said we're not prepared to let this country go to the wall. Councils have had their spending reduced. But they spend a lot of money. Either we do this or the country goes bust. Actually satisfaction in councils has risen as their budgets have been cut. You don't always have to spend money to solve the problem."

But if things are so much better thanks to the Coalition Government, why are we still being expected to support austerity?

"The job's only half done," says Mr Shapps. "We are about a third of the way through cutting the deficit. I suspect we will be further by next year. All the time the deficit is there we are racking up debt. We have to finish off the job. The last Labour government did not put the country in a position to cope with the recession. We will have half way fixed that problem. To give up on that would be crazy. That would be the central argument of the next election."

The Tories will have to defend some of their seats with different candidates to the ones people elected. Cannock Chase's Aidan Burley is leaving after being heavily criticised for attending a stag party where the groom wore a Nazi uniform. Dudley South's Chris Kelly has had enough of a life spent driving back and forth to London.

"The Aidan Burley case is unique," says Mr Shapps, not wanting to go back over old ground. "Chris Kelly and others served a term and wanted to moved on. This isn't said very often because there is little sympathy for MPs but there are lots of stresses and strains on being a member of Parliament. There's a lot of travelling and time away from the family. That's not unique to being and MP but it will take its toll on some people."

The challenge is big for the Tories. In 2010 three out of four councils in the Black Country were under Conservative control. Now they're all Labour.

"You can take council results and extrapolate them out. I don't advise it," says Mr Shapps. "We are committed to come back here to Birmingham for our conference in 2016, 2018 and 2020. We have more members here than ever before. Those members haven't travelled from London they are from all over the place. When people are faced with a serious choice, they will see we are the ones best placed to secure the future."