NSoA responds to the Conservative Party’s general election manifesto

Today the Conservative Party launched their manifesto, Charlie James, representative from National Society of Apprentices said:

“Inside the Conservative manifesto are a series of policies that the NSoA has been calling for. We welcome the extension of nursing apprenticeships, a single powerful enforcement agency protecting the rights of apprentices both in work and training as well as recognising that where public money is spent employers should train apprentices.

“NSoA Manifesto asked parties to commit to maintaining and promoting the Apprenticeship Mental and we welcome the commitment to treating mental health provision seriously.

“We’ve been here before though. In 2015 and in 2017 the conservative manifestos were full of commitments to apprentices. We were promised well funded high quality training – over half of apprentices don’t receive any off the job training. We were promised action on employers exploiting apprentices – a fifth of apprentices are paid below the apprentice minimum wage of just £3.90 and hour.

“In 2017 every single conservative candidate stood on a manifesto commitment to reduce the cost of public transport of apprentices. Since then we have seen prevarication and delay. Night after night we heard conservative MP’s talking about the importance of honouring manifesto commitments.

“Nothing happened and that promise to reduce the cost of public transport for apprentices has been unceremoniously dumped.”