Healey Expands £100 Million Apprenticeships Plan to All English Mayors as Budget Pressure Mounts
Updated
Updated · bbc.co.uk · Sep 28
Healey Expands £100 Million Apprenticeships Plan to All English Mayors as Budget Pressure Mounts
3 articles · Updated · bbc.co.uk · Sep 28
Summary
£100 million in extra funding will extend the Local Apprenticeships Service to any English mayor from March 2027, widening what had been planned as a limited pilot.
Healey said the scheme would deliver thousands more apprenticeships by letting mayoral teams match young people with employers, including small firms that have never hired trainees.
1 million young people are not in education, employment or training, and Healey used that figure to argue welfare should become a bridge into work rather than a long-term trap.
Fiscal pressure framed the announcement: ahead of next month's Budget, Healey vowed to stick to fiscal rules, said promises would rest on "fiscal discipline," and cast welfare restraint as a moral as well as economic duty.
The move also fits Labour's wider growth pitch, alongside Healey's renewed industrial policy push and his claim that Rolls-Royce will invest another £300 million in UK factories.