Conservative manifesto pledges highly skilled jobs for the young

Commitments to leave the European single market and to create a “modern industrial strategy”, aimed at helping young people into high skilled jobs of the future, were just some of the stand-out promises affecting recruitment in the Conservative’s Election Manifesto.

All this week, Recruiter has brought you the main pledges affecting recruitment from each of the major political parties’ election manifesto – and today it is the turn of the Conservative Party.

Their Election Manifesto, published yesterday, commits the party to:

On Brexit

  • To no longer be members of the single market or customs union post Brexit but to seek a “deep and special” partnership including a comprehensive free trade and customs agreement. 
  • To introduce a Great Repeal Bill converting EU law into UK law, meaning that the rights of workers and protections given to consumers and the environment by EU law will continue to be available in UK law at the point at which we leave the EU. Though the bill will also create the necessary powers to correct the laws that do not “operate appropriately” once the UK has left the EU, so our legal system can continue to “function correctly” outside the EU. 
  • To maintain the Common Travel Area and maintain as frictionless a border as possible for people, goods and services between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Workers’ rights conferred on British citizens from UK membership of the EU to remain. 

On immigration

  • To create an immigration policy enabling the UK to reduce and control the number of people who come to Britain from the EU, while still allowing it to attract the skilled workers the economy needs.
  • To double the Immigration Skills Charge levied on companies employing migrant workers to £2k a year by the end of the parliament, using the revenue generated to invest in higher level skills training for workers in the UK. 
  • To control immigration and secure the entitlements of EU nationals in Britain and British nationals in the EU. 

On creating a modern industrial strategy

  • To create a modern industrial strategy that works for people across the UK and helps young people to develop the skills they need to do the high-paid, high-skilled jobs of the future and ask the independent Migration Advisory Committee to make recommendations to the government about how the visa system can become better aligned with this strategy. 
  • Using the committee’s advice to set aside significant numbers of visas for workers in strategically-important sectors, such as digital technology, without adding to net migration as a whole. 

On getting people into work

  • To fund schemes aimed at encouraging firms to recruit older professionals, including those returning to the workplace having cared for children and relatives and those approaching retirement. 
  • Support for companies to take on parents and carers returning to work after long periods of absence.
  • To get 1m more people with disabilities into employment over the next 10 years. 
  • Legislation to give unemployed disabled claimants or those with a health condition personalised and tailored employment support. 
  • To help veterans start new careers by ensuring that the skills and qualifications they gained in service are recognised by civilian employers and by introducing a one year holiday on Employer National Insurance Contributions for firms hiring service personnel after they leave service.

Board appointments

  • To make the inclusion of an employee representative at board level mandatory for listed businesses.

On taxes

  • Simplifying the tax system to reduce complexity for people – particularly the self employed and small businesses

On the gig economy

  • Ensuring people working in the ‘gig’ economy are properly protected so that the interests of employees on traditional contracts, the self-employed and those people working in the ‘gig’ economy are all properly protected. 

On late payment

  • To use government’s buying power to ensure big contractors comply with the Prompt Payment Code both on government contracts and in their work with others. Failure to do so will result in the loss of the right to bid for government contracts. 

On relocating Central Government and Channel 4 jobs

  • Beginning with the UK government’s arm’s-length bodies, to start moving significant numbers of UK government civil servants and other public servants out of London and the South-East to cities around the UK – senior posts to also move, so operational headquarters as well as administrative functions are centred not in London but around Britain. 
  • To do the same with the arts and cultural organisations, with Channel 4 to be relocated out of London. 

On modern slavery

  • To review the application of exploitation in the Modern Slavery Act to strengthen the UK’s ability to stop criminals putting men, women and children into criminal, dangerous and exploitative working conditions. 

On education

  • To create a single jobs portal, like NHS Jobs, for schools to advertise vacancies aimed at cutting costs and help find the best teachers. 

On skills

  • Delivering on government’s commitment to create 3m apprenticeships for young people by 2020.
  • To allow large firms to pass levy funds to small firms in their supply chain, and work with the business community to develop a new programme to enable larger firms to place apprentices in their supply chains. 

On the public sector

  • To break down the barriers to public sector workers taking on more qualified roles because of their prior educational attainment, teaching assistants become qualified teachers and healthcare assistants will be able to become nurses via a degree apprenticeship route, in addition to other routes. 

On the NHS

  • To make it a priority in our negotiations with the EU that the 140,000 staff from EU countries can carry on working in the NHS.

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