Sarah meets apprentices with West Mids Mayor
- Office of Sarah Edwards MP
- Dec 17, 2024
- 2 min read
Sarah Edwards MP brought Mayor of the West Midlands Combined Authority Richard Parker to visit Kier Construction in Tamworth Town Centre and talk about how the Mayor and the new Government can better support the growth of skills, training and apprenticeships and get people into work, and meet with local apprentices. Kier Construction are building the new Staffordshire College site in the town centre and actively work with schools and colleges to showcase the wide variety of careers that construction can provide.
With a focus of growth and building infrastructure, the Government recognises the importance of skills education and development. Between 2017 and 2022 skills shortages in this country doubled to more than half a million, and now account for 36% of job vacancies.
The launch by this Government of Skills England will bring together central and local government, businesses, training providers and unions to meet the skills needs of the next decade across all regions, providing strategic oversight of the post-16 skills system aligned to the Government’s Industrial Strategy.
Sarah said:
“I am delighted Richard Parker came to see the fantastic work being done here in Tamworth. Kier Construction have a clear apprenticeship and training scheme for young people, and it is the variety of opportunities that they can offer that make a career in construction so rewarding.
"Apprenticeships play a critical role in not just the training and education of young people and adults, but it is at the front of enabling social mobility and meeting the local skills and employment needs here in Tamworth and Staffordshire.”
The new Government has a big ambition to grow apprenticeships as part of its mission to fix England’s broken skills system, both Sarah and Richard Parker are committed to ensuring that Tamworth and the wider West Midlands are at the centre of this. With the West Midlands mayor pledging in July to work with businesses to create 20,000 new work experience placements, training placements and apprenticeships for young people.
