Poles going home could cause Olympic skills gap, say Tories

The government is not doing enough to train up apprentices on the 2012 Olympics, a Tory minister has claimed.

Shadow education minister David Willetts warned that a “skills crisis” is looming, due to skilled Polish workers returning home to work and a lack of apprentices on the 2012 Olympics.

In a speech at the Conservative Party Conference, Willetts said the industry needed 182,000 extra skilled workers for the Olympics, including 13,000 bricklayers and 15,000 plumbers, now that many of the “hard working, well trained” Polish workers were returning to their homeland to build the 2012 European Football Championships.

He said: “We asked ministers how many apprentices were on the Olympic site, guess what they said. Sixty two. Just 62 young people training to make our 2012 dream come true. What a wasted opportunity.”

Willetts said the Tories would spend £20m a year on 1,200 “skills scholarships” allowing apprentices from under-privileged backgrounds to study topics such as engineering.