Cable plans apprenticeship pay boost

6 Oct 14
Business Secretary Vince Cable has set out plans to increase the pay of apprenticeships by more than £1-an-hour in a bid to encourage more young people to take them up.

By Richard Johnstone in Glasgow | 6 October 2014

Business Secretary Vince Cable has set out plans to increase the pay of apprenticeships by more than £1-an-hour in a bid to encourage more young people to take them up.

Speaking at the Liberal Democrat party conference, Cable said that the current level of pay for apprentices aged from 16 to 18, which is £2.73, should be abolished.

The rate of £3.79, which currently applies to all other workers up to the age of 18, should apply instead.

Cable said he had submitted the plans to the Low Pay Commission, which sets the rules regarding pay bands. It will make a recommendation on the proposal with the announcement next Spring of the 2015 National Minimum Wage rate.

The proposed change would increase pay for around 31,000 apprentices in the first year of their programme, he added.

‘The National Minimum Wage has successfully protected the incomes and jobs of the lowest paid workers in the UK. This year it will see the first above inflation rise in the minimum wage since the recession [to £6.50].

‘Thanks to the LibDems, apprenticeships are helping to create a stronger economy and opportunities for young people. I want the minimum pay for apprentices boosted by £1 an hour.’

Cable also set out what he called the LibDem industrial strategy to create a knowledge-based, outward looking and green economy.

‘The industrial strategy is public-private partnership writ large,” Cable told delegates. ‘It is also long term, while our business culture is far too often dominated by short-term shareholder returns.’

‘In reality it needs a decade, or several, to develop the next generation of energy-efficient vehicle engines, to produce new cancer drugs, to develop off-shore wind or gas fields, to create new railways or design and build new aircraft. The industrial strategy helps to make these things possible and it is working.’

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