Miliband looks to force apprenticeships on businesses who employ migrants

Businesses should be made to train up one apprentice for every non-EU worker they employ, according to Labour leader Ed Miliband.

Miliband is desperate to ensure that more apprenticeships are created if Labour gets back into power and believes this initiative will help do just that.

He outlined his bold new ideas ahead of the Labour Party conference in Brighton, which began on Sunday 22 September.

According to bbc.co.uk, he said: “I want a high-wage British economy, not a low-wage brutish economy and we’ve got plans to make that happen to drive up skills. We think that can create up to 125,000 new apprenticeships over the course of five years and that is a massive boost in skills for our young people and that is really important.”

The controversial plans could be of interest to anyone looking to start a franchise or their own business, perhaps swaying their opinions on the benefits of hiring non-EU staff – although they would need to check if proposals definitely affected their organisation.

Dailymail.co.uk reports that the move they has been criticised in some quarters though, most notably by the British Chambers of Commerce.

John Longworth, who is the body’s director general, described it as an “apprentice tax on employers and job creation” which wouldn’t help young workers.