I am really enjoying being able to tell you of some of the action I’m taking on behalf of residents in Wythenshawe and Sale East and hope you are finding these columns interesting? Last week I had a young woman who lives in Woodhouse Park doing some work experience with me, and one of the things we talked about was the variety of hats an MP wears to support businesses and constituents.
Last week was National Apprenticeship week and for the past few years I’ve held an apprenticeship event where local and national employers have taken stalls. On the day local schools bring students along to meet businesses to hear about opportunities on our doorstep. Apprenticeships are a brilliant way to gain valuable skills, experience and in some cases you can get a Level 5 qualification which is equivalent to a degree! You can do almost anything in Wythenshawe and Sale East – logistics, engineering, hair and beauty, AI, NHS placements – it’s really worth looking into.
I was a teacher before I became an MP and once elected I was shadow Schools Minister, so education, work and skills are something I feel underpin thriving communities. Last year there were 3,335 claimants in Wythenshawe and Sale East which is almost five per cent of the population aged 16-64. The equivalent UK claimant rate was 3.7 per cent. 10.1 per cent of the population aged 18-24 in WSE are on unemployment benefits, this is more than double the UK equivalent rate. There is good news though, over the last year the number of claimants had dropped by 155 so things are moving in the right direction.
I now have the role as shadow Aviation and Maritime Minister, and much of the manifesto we are working on and the work I do in that brief is looking on how to bring highly paid, highly skilled, unionised careers to every constituency in the country. With this in mind, I took a trip over the border into Altrincham and Sale West last week with local councillor and parliamentary candidate, Ben Hartley, to visit Maersk, a huge logistics company with a base at the Atlantic Business Park, They’ve taken a huge site there and it was great to hear about their intention to recruit logistics staff locally and to work with local schools and colleges to encourage them into careers within logistics.
I was also keen to hear about how their seafarers are dealing with the dangerous situation in the Red Sea. They were able to reassure me of the safety of their seafarers having re-routed their ships around the Cape however this is adding around 10 days to cargo deliveries and increased fuel burn in the process. I like to think the young woman shadowing me has a clearer understanding of the kinds of things I do day to day now!
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