George celebrates Cornish Apprenticeship success
Andrew George, centre, pictured at the launch last year of Cornwall Apprenticeships 300 in 100 campaign
West Cornwall MP, Andrew George, will tomorrow ( Tuesday 17th February) meet apprentices from across Cornwall. He will meet a cohort of eight new Youth Apprentices starting their one year apprenticeship this month with voluntary organisations, charities and social enterprises such as the Penwith Community Development Trust (PCDT), Devon & Cornwall Housing and Young People Cornwall.
Mr George has been a strong advocate of apprenticeships in West Cornwall. Since 2010, Mr George’s Liberal Democrat colleagues in Coalition will have created over 2million new apprenticeships across the country, with 780 set up in the West Cornwall and Isles of Scilly constituency in 2013 and 670 established in the area last year. These opportunities have provided jobs and in-work training across sectors including agriculture, business, health and engineering.
The Cornwall Apprenticeship Agency has administered the recruitment for this cohort of apprentices, while Penwith Community Development Trust is the training provider and the Cornwall Youth Work Partnership has facilitated the Apprenticeship work placements with its member organisations such as the YMCA in Penzance, Young People Cornwall and Devon and Cornwall Housing.
However, Mr George highlighted the difficulties small businesses face employing apprentices, when he recently called on Apprenticeship Minister, Nick Boles, in the Commons to do more to help small and micro-businesses recruit apprentices.
Mr George said, “I look forward to meeting the new apprentices. I welcome the creation of hundreds of new apprenticeships in West Cornwall, and the Cornwall Apprenticeship Agency should be congratulated on their work.
“Apprenticeships provide benefits both for businesses and for the young person gaining employment and training. However, West Cornwall has a high number of small businesses which face distinct challenges which larger businesses do not face when seeking to recruit apprentices. More needs to be done to help rural and small businesses create apprenticeships.”