The great training robbery

Britain has not been "great" for some time now. It isn't so much that young people find being a plumber, joiner or electrician boring, it's the fact that companies have been getting so competitive and streamlined that they don't spend money on training.

I served my time as a joiner over four years and then worked my way into management, but in the past few years I've watched in horror as people do a six-week course and then call themselves joiners. I find it amusing that people in government and building management are now saying there is a problem; because people with 15-to-20 years' site experience have been saying this for a long time and nobody ever took any notice.

We aren't great anymore, Mr Hemingway, because people have become greedy and want to make a quick buck. And with top management making stupid amounts in wages and bonuses, there probably isn't much money left over for training.

Young people want a chance to get rich (I was the same) and it's easier for them in a dotcom or computer-related job; there's certainly no chance of getting a good modern apprenticeship in the building industry. We can get young people back on to building sites if we give them an incentive and let them see that plumbers, joiners and electricians have real earning power. But unless those at the top realise that to get something out they first have to put something in, we will never put the great back into Britain.