Creating New Apprenticeships

I have just returned from a presentation in Birmingham where George Osborne and David Willets were talking to student and members of the local business community about the economy in general and our plans to increase the number of new apprenticeships for young people. David spoke about the difficulty that apprentices face if they loose their job before their training is complete, how this would be completely unacceptable in any other area of education. Well informed and questions were posed about tuition fees, climate change, support for manufacturing, overseas aid, the effect of uncertainty in the postal service on business, the extent of tax avoidance and Govenment cuts to the College building programme. What was interesting was that most questions were posed on the basis that we will be in power after May and it fell to George to remind people that our assumption remains an "if" rather than a "when".