In his second week as Prime Minister, Andy Burnham has unveiled a plan to tackle youth unemployment: encouraging teenagers to set career ambitions early, aligning school qualifications with local industry needs, and asking employers to back it with real apprenticeship places.
Burnham has said it’s time to “value the hard hat as much as the graduation cap.”
Speaking to John Pienaar on Times Radio, business leader, philanthropist, property developer and Phones 4U founder John Caudwell gave the plan his backing, calling it “absolutely sensible” and something he has campaigned for over two decades.
Caudwell drew on his own path into business – leaving school before his A-levels to join a five-year apprenticeship at Michelin Tyre Company, one of only 50 places out of 1,400 applicants, which combined hands-on engineering training with day-release study for an HNC.
He also pointed to his own employer experience offering Saturday work to young people at Phones 4U, and the pushback it drew at the time, as evidence of how undervalued vocational routes have historically been.
Caudwell said:
“What’s a bigger cost to society than a million young people out of work on social security? That is terrible. It’s terrible waste of people. It’s a terrible waste of opportunity for the country and the government. Reversing that trend and pouring the money into providing employment for these young people and providing skills that they’re proud of, that they can have in a different way rather than academia, is so sensible.”
Caudwell argued that real success will depend on incentivising employers to build genuinely “world-class” apprenticeships – not token six-month placements – and on shifting a culture that has long prized the university path above the trades, even as skilled tradespeople become harder than ever to find.
