The government’s own statistics show that the number of young people not in employment, education or training (NEETs) has grown by nearly 20% since Labour took office; it has consistently missed its apprenticeship targets, and it has cut funding for careers guidance for the young by nearly 16% since the start of the decade. This government has let our young people down.

Not only is the issue about getting people back into work, but is about getting people into work in the first place. The Conservatives have proposed positive, practical solutions that will reverse this trend:

• Help for employers and employees everywhere by cutting bureaucracy, designing government programmes to follow the learner and providing support for the skills that people actually need
• Help for apprentices through the injection of £775 million of support; making it easier for companies to run apprenticeship schemes and helping smaller companies to offer apprenticeships
• Help for the thousands of apprentices who risk losing their training places through this recession by the allocation of £150 million of support
• Help for NEETs by establishing a special £100 million support fund
• Help for those who need to update their skills by providing a further £100 million for much-needed courses to enable people to gain new skills
• Help for young people starting out by redirecting £180 million of wasted money to fund a careers adviser in every secondary school and college.

Training, or re-training, is an important route back into employment for many and our plans will help fund programmes which will have a direct effect on retraining, improving skills, and getting people back into work. Our area has always been known as a centre of technical innovation and I want to see Warwick and Leamington continue to play this important role.