Ed Miliband has promised better relations between young people and British business as he launched Labour’s official election campaign.
The Labour leader used his speech at Bloomberg’s European headquarters in London to unveil his party’s Better Plan for Business manifesto and demanded a “revolution in vocational education”.
Miliband described the trend of an “academic route for the best and poor quality vocational training for the rest” in the current educational landscape.
“We need all our young people to have access to world class education, training and skills, so we’ll create a new clear pathway to a gold standard vocational baccalaureate.
“If people work hard and get the grades, we’ll make a clear offer to our young people, we’ll make sure there is a high quality apprenticeship for you.”
The speech comes as the election campaign is officially launched, following the dissolution of Parliament, 25 working days before the election. We’re live-blogging all day with the latest election news.
Miliband also announced how the apprenticeship scheme will help British business and the “deal” the Labour party will make.
“We can only create the apprenticeships we need by working together with you, British business, public sector and private, partnerships for a purpose, and this is the deal.
“We’ll give you greater control over the money for apprenticeships and in exchange we’ll say that any firm that gets a major government contract, must provide apprenticeships for the next generation.”
Miliband emphasised that the new plan will bring “opportunities for all our young people” and “well-trained employees” for British businesses.
The Labour leader went on to announce their plans to create “a British investment bank” to support regional banks and create more investment across Britain.
He also discussed the party’s plans for the EU, telling business leaders that Britain’s future “lies inside, not outside the European Union”.
‘There could be nothing worse for our country or for our great exporting business than playing political games with our membership in the EU. I’m not going to do it.’
His point relates to David Cameron’s promise to renegotiate Britain’s membership of the EU by holding a referendum before 2017 whilst the Lib Dems have said no more powers should be transferred to Brussels.
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