How post-industrial towns can benefit from on-the-job training - Jade Botterill

In Yorkshire, we know more than most the impact declining opportunity can have on people’s lives. As industries declined, the stable and aspirational careers they offered went with them. It seemed that opportunities, prosperity and ‘futures’ moved to the cities, and have stayed there since.

When I meet young people in Yorkshire today, I am continually struck by their aspiration, and their clear-headed desire to work hard to get on in life. But for too long, there’s been an assumption that the best way – the only way – that they can build their lives is leaving their home town to study at university.

Of course, it does work for many, and I’m proud that the previous Labour Government opened up access to universities so that anyone, and not just an elite few, could go. I’m also incredibly proud of nearby Huddersfield University, with over half of its students coming from a commutable distance.

For me, this is personal. In school, I worked hard and had a good head on my shoulders. I had that same dream to get on in life. It seemed that the only way to get ahead and build a life was to leave my town to go to university. But it didn’t work for me. I left, and I went to learn on the job.

I mention this experience, not to talk-down universities, but to talk up the alternatives. It should be the case that young people feel – as I did – that to not go to university is lesser, or a failure. Categorically, it isn’t.

It suited me to earn and learn at the same time. I liked being able to stay in the area and with the people that I loved. I enjoyed the purposeful feeling of working on live issues, like I was contributing to our community through hard work.

But importantly, not only do apprenticeships and work-based learning better suit the needs of some. They suit the needs of the country.

Afterall, so many of the jobs in our area, jobs people did with pride, prosperity and upon which our community was built, didn't need a degree.

But I don’t want to fall into unproductive nostalgia about industries of the past. I also don’t want to follow the last Government in celebrating skills, without the necessary infrastructure investment to give apprentices genuine job security.

Thankfully, this Government is doing both through its ambitious plan to renew this country and grow the economy. But to build these new reservoirs, clean energy projects, schools, hospitals, railways and homes, we need the hard work of skilled electricians, plumbers, engineers and tradespeople.

These are skills not best taught at university or in classrooms, but on the job through in-work apprenticeships and training.

That’s why it’s launched Skills England and it’s why we’ve stopped the previous Government’s plan to shelve key technical qualifications - to reverse a decade of declining employer investment in training.

This approach is working, and I’m pleased to say that since Labour came into office, apprenticeship starters, participation and achievements have risen.

Each one of these new apprentices have been given the chance to learn in a way that works for them. To pursue opportunity in a way that works for them.

Jade Botterill is the Labour MP for Ossett and Denby Dale.