Toby Perkins – 2021 Comments on Government Failing to Meet Apprentice Target

The comments made by Toby Perkins, the Shadow Minister for Further Education and Skills, on 13 September 2021.

Young people and employers have been failed by the Conservatives’ irresponsible handling of the Covid crisis and a decade of neglect which has shut young people out of the training opportunities they need.

Skills and retraining should be a vital part of our economic recovery, but the Conservatives have shown themselves incapable of reversing the decline in apprenticeships which has seen over 188,000 opportunities lost under their leadership with 2020 seeing the lowest number of 16 and 17-year-olds starting an apprenticeship since the 1980s.

Labour has set out an ambitious plan to create 100,000 new apprenticeship opportunities for young people harnessing their skills and capabilities to fuel our economic recovery post-pandemic.