Trade unions are pushing for strict quotas for apprentices employed on public sector contracts to stave off the skills crisis in industries such as construction, writes Sarah Richardson.

At the annual TUC in Brighton this week, unions from across the industry backed a motion from Ucatt calling for government contracts to include clauses requiring contractors to provide craft-based apprenticeships.

The move came as skills secretary John Denham announced that the government was establishing a 鈥渃learing house鈥� to match apprentices at risk of redundancy with employers so that they could complete their training.

Denham said: 鈥淲e don鈥檛 want to lose young, skilled trainees from the industry. In the past construction has been kept afloat by an uncertain and fluctuating pool of migrant labour.鈥�

The minister reiterated a pledge to create 42,000 apprenticeships in construction by 2012, saying that these would provide 鈥減roper training in real jobs鈥�.

Construction has been kept afloat by an uncertain pool of migrant labour

John Denham

Despite the government鈥檚 promises, the unions pledged to pressure it to redress a regional imbalance in apprenticeship opportunities; a far higher number are offered in northern England and Scotland compared with London and the South-east.

Wilf Flynn, executive council member of Ucatt for the northern region, said: 鈥淵ou don鈥檛 train a tradesperson by sitting them in a classroom. If we don鈥檛 get it right, we won鈥檛 have apprentices today and we certainly won鈥檛 have them tomorrow.鈥�

鈥� Ucatt activists in Oxfordshire held a minute鈥檚 silence on Tuesday for Altin Balla, a worker killed on a shopping centre site in Witney last month. It is understood that Balla was crushed by steel girders while operating a cherry picker.