Burnham pledges UCAS-style apprenticeships and cut of salary for homeless crisis

Labour mayoral candidate for Greater Manchester Andy Burnham has said he wants to bridge the skills gap by creating a UCAS-style apprenticeship system for young people, with 16 to 18-year-olds getting free bus passes paid for by the post-devolution re-regulation of services.

Speaking to an audience of business leaders at dinner hosted by law firm Ward Hadaway in Manchester last night, the Leigh MP also pledged, if elected on May 4, to donated 15% of his £100,000 salary to launching a fund to tackle rough sleeping and homelessness across the city region by 2020.

Distancing himself from perceived mainstream national Labour Party thinking, Burnham said: “We will always be unapologetically pro-business in what we’re trying to do. Want to build a business culture across the whole of Greater Manchester.

“We want young people in Greater Manchester to have real hope for their own future and to have aspiration for what they might achieve.

“If elected, we’re going to create a university-style application system for apprenticeships for young people in Greater Manchester.

“I appeal to every person in this room to help us build that. The idea is that a young people aged 14 or 15 should be able to go online and see all the apprenticeships that are available on Greater Manchester. To see the course that they want to take and the grades the need to get on them.

“To support that we’re going to give all the young people in Greater Manchester a free bus pass for all 16 to 18-year-olds, not paid for by the rest of the population but by the leverage we get by re-regulating the buses under the new devolution agreement.”

“It’s about getting Greater Manchester ready for the challenge of Brexit. The number of tech and digital companies have told me that there isn’t the number of people with the skills needed coming through.

That’s because we’ve got an education system dragging young people towards the traditional core subjects that doesn’t work for business.”

He went on: “I am not doing this to be told by anyone in the hierarchy of my party what to do. I’m doing this purely to be my own man, to do what I think is right.

“I’m not doing it as a stepping stone to something else in politics, or biding my time for something else. I want to invest whatever remains of my political capital and career into building this into what it needs to be, which is a moment of real change for the country, where it rebalances from south to north.”

However, Burnham, who has been an MP for 16 years, said he wanted to be running a city region that “had the right values – one that leaves nobody behind.”

He said: “I don’t think anyone feels comfortable about the number of homeless and rough sleepers that we see around the whole of Greater Manchester at the moment.

“We will get a name for ourselves if we show we’re prepared to do things differently to deal with some of the challenges that we face as a society.

“What I’m not going to do, if I get elected, is constantly moan in the papers and hold our a begging bowl to Westminster. What I want to show is that we’ll do things for ourselves, by building new approaches to different issues.

“On that particular issue I want to put the appeal out to businesses who want to help tackle rough sleeping and I am making a commitment that I will donate 15% of my mayoral salary to kick start a new fund to tackle rough sleeping in Greater Manchester by 2020.

“I’m doing it because I want to show leadership from the start – that this is not about an easy job for me.

“I’ve not just come from Westminster to pick up an easy number. But I’m doing it also because, I make no bones about it, I will be coming to some of you to say ‘will you help out too’.

“I don’t think we want that to be what is happening to so many of our fellow citizens on these cold nights when they have to huddle in the doorways. That for me is Greater Manchester is all about – that spirit of doing the right thing. We want to get on in life, but we don’t forget those who are left behind.”

Other mayoral candidates include Conservative Sean Anstee, Liberal Democrat Jane Brophy, UKIP’s Shneur Odze and the for the Green Pary Will Patterson.