The Reform UK Podcast
Go behind the scenes with Reform UK as leader Nigel Farage travels the country spreading his message of hope to broken Britain.
Listen in as he and the rest of the Reform UK team speak at packed rallies, make major announcements, and hold real conversations with everyday Brits - from young people struggling with the cost of living to business owners looking for change. Experience the energy, humour, and growing turquoise momentum sweeping the nation.
Hosted by journalist Ray Addison. New episodes every Monday. Join the journey.
The Reform UK Podcast
Benefits Bombshell! - Reform To End Foreign Welfare Rip-Off
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Go behind-the -scenes as Reform UK unveils its radical plan to overhaul the welfare state, including an end to benefits for non-British citizens, a new welfare-to-work scheme, and major reforms to disability claims. In exclusive interviews with podcast host Ray Addison, Shadow Chancellor Robert Jenrick explains the policy and the thinking behind it, while Deputy Leader Richard Tice responds to the public and media reaction. Later, Suella Braverman launches the party’s British Skills Revolution at a painting and decorating firm in Enfield, setting out Reform’s new approach to apprenticeships.
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It's 11am on Monday, the 17th of August, and I'm arriving in Westminster to watch Reform UK unveil a major new welfare policy. Just steps from Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament, Church House is steeped in history. In fact, it once sheltered Parliament itself during the Blitz. Inside, in Hall Memorial Hall, morning light filtered through the high windows as journalists and camera crews waited for the press conference to start.
SPEAKER_09Good morning, everybody.
SPEAKER_07Then Reform's Deputy Leader Richard Tice stepped up to the podium.
SPEAKER_09Good morning, everybody. Lovely to see you here in the middle of August. Of course, Reform, we are always at work. And today's press conference is about making welfare work. I do want to reiterate at the start, we at Reform, we will always do the right thing to protect and support our pensioners, the elderly, the sick, the vulnerable, those looking for work. That is a key to who we are. And in a sense, we all want a world-leading benefit system that helps and supports those in need. But the reality is I think most people accept across all parties or no parties that actually the current welfare system isn't working properly.
SPEAKER_07Richard then handed over to Shadow Chancellor Robert Genrick to set out how a reform UK government would get £141,000 people back into work and save the taxpayer £51 billion a year.
SPEAKER_03We'll begin by ending the foreign welfare ripoff. Under a reform government, only British citizens will be entitled to benefits. There will be limited exceptions of service in the armed forces. But beyond that, the line will be clear. The welfare state is there for Britain. No British citizenship, no entitlement. That's fair.
SPEAKER_07He then turned to disability benefits and a system borrowed from the Netherlands that he says could cut claims by 40%.
SPEAKER_03The idea is very simple. For the first two years of an employee being signed off sick, they'll remain on their employers' books, receiving payments based on welfare rates. Employers' national insurance contributions will be cut nationally to offset those costs, giving the employers who know their workers best an incentive, firstly, to look after them well when they are in work, and then to help them back into work if they're off sick, rather than just passing the bill to the taxpayer and forgetting about their workers. That's not the right way.
SPEAKER_07Afterwards, I found Rob in the green room and asked him what is fundamentally broken about the current welfare system.
SPEAKER_03Well, we all want to live in a country where you're protected if you find yourself in tough times. And we all know people who have been in those situations. Maybe it's someone listening to this podcast. I want to be very clear, reform is always going to look after those people. And we're a party of working people, so I'd like to think we're more in touch with people who are finding life hard than most of the politicians you find here in Westminster. But it's also people who are on lower incomes who are most angry and frustrated when they look around and see other people who are taking the mick. They're the couple who are getting up early in the morning in my constituency and Newark to go and maybe go and work in a distribution centre, but then they see the curtains closed next door. Maybe they see a Motability BMW on the drive and they think maybe these people don't really deserve it. And that's got to change. And so what we're saying is let's restore fairness. Let's get back to a system where those who genuinely need and deserve it, those people with physical disabilities, with really serious conditions, are always looked after by the state. And maybe even let's maybe even do it better than this than the state does today, because some of those people are not living on a lot of money at the moment. But let's also make sure we get the other people back into the workplace, leading rewarding lives, making a contribution. And I think we can find that balance.
SPEAKER_07He then told me about a personal experience that shaped how he sees long-term unemployment.
SPEAKER_03Anyone who knows somebody who has been made redundant or sacked knows what a big effect it has. I remember as a child, my dad was made redundant. And even though I was quite young, it had a huge impact on the family. The fact that he was just there all the time at home. You could sense the loss of self-confidence about a man who's your dad, who's the father of you know, the head of the household, someone who you looked up to. And it's a very difficult situation. Getting those people out and about doing productive things and giving them a big push to go and get another job, I think will be really, really beneficial for everyone, particularly for those individuals. And uh it's just common sense.
SPEAKER_07What is it about the reforms that you've announced today that you think will make work more attractive than staying on welfare?
SPEAKER_03Well, uh there are so many examples that people can give today where people are earning more on benefits than their neighbours who are actually working, and that's just fundamentally wrong, isn't it? And you can't be a workers' party like reform and turn a blind eye to that. So the set of policies we've set out today, I think, will make a big difference. It will take away benefits from those people who are taking the MIC. It will keep them and enhance them for people who deserve them, of which there are many people in this country, including many people who support reform, and we want to look after those people. And it will create big incentives for people who are looking for jobs to get back into the workplace as quickly as possible. And look, what's the alternative? I mean, at the moment, there's almost seven million Brits who are out of work, who should be working. You know, the number of people who are claiming for mental health has doubled, the number of kids who are getting disability benefits has doubled in the last decade. The country's gonna go bankrupt if this continues, even setting aside the kind of moral failure that this represents, that there's so many workless households, people who are you know being dumped on benefits. Someone's got to do something about this. And I strongly believe that reform is about radical change. We don't run away from difficult issues, we run towards them. We come with sensible, common sense uh responses to them, and we try and put this country on a stronger footing for the future.
SPEAKER_07Reform has estimated that these changes could save the taxpayer around 50 billion a year. Has that money been earmarked in any particular direction at this stage?
SPEAKER_03Not yet, although there's lots of people in reform who've got ideas about what we should spend that money on. Um I mean part of it will need to be on paying down all the debts, because I mean the country is in a mess at the moment. Uh we're up to our neck in debt, and that's just getting worse. We're spending, or about to spend, more on debt interest than we spend on the defence and schools budget combined. Imagine that. Um but look, yeah, I it I I want to use some of this money to do the things that reform supporters want to see. Better public services, you know, better schools, filling in the potholes, better NHS, and above all, cutting taxes for working people because they've been battered in recent times by all those tax risers, first under the Tories, now under the Labour Party. And it's only by doing the hard yards like we have today, doing things that frankly the other parties were too weak or afraid to do, that we can buy ourselves the credibility to be able to go and do something like cut people's taxes. You know, our our voters are smart, they're not fools. They know that money doesn't grow on trees. And so if we offered them, say, a tax cut, they want to know where you're getting this money from. And I was in a political party for many years that lied to people, that said they were gonna do things. Oh, we'll stop the boats. They never stopped the boats. They laughed at people, they stuck two fingers up at their own voters. That's not me. You know, I don't want to be like that. I want to be a shadow chancellor that is honest with the public. And if I stand up and say, in my first budget, I'm gonna do something, I want to be able to look myself in the mirror and know that if we win the next general election and I'm at that dispatch box making that budget speech, I will do it. That's the reform difference. We want to be honest and we want to do the things we say we're gonna do.
SPEAKER_07Finally, then, ultimately, is the ambition simply to cut the welfare bill? Are you looking more at changing the working culture or perhaps the sickness culture here in the UK?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's a big change. We're exactly. We're not just motivated, we're not like just, you know, uh accountants trying to scrump and save for the sake of it. It's not, you know, what do they used to call him? Spread sheep Phil, you know, Philip Hammond. Um, we're doing this for a higher purpose than that. We're doing it because we don't think it's morally right to be parking people. A million young people are not in education, employment, or training. They're sat at home in their childhood bedrooms, you know, doom scrolling. That's wrong. We don't want to see that happen. And we also fundamentally are here to represent working people. And at the moment, their taxes are going up to pay for all this, and I want to cut their taxes. And it's only by doing this that we'll be able to do the right thing by our people. But I do want to be very clear that we're always going to protect the people who really need it. And, you know, so I think as a group of members of parliament in reform, I would argue we're much more in touch than most of the other parties. You know, we're not these old school safe seat Tory MPs who never knock on doors, or these Labour MPs who represent tough parts of Birmingham or Manchester but actually live in Islington. You know, Lee Anderson, Nigel Farage, Richard Tice, you know, myself, Terra Project, each and every one of us. Every Saturday morning we're out knocking on doors, we're talking to people, we're in touch with the communities that we represent. We see people who are finding life very, very tough, including people who are on pip and receiving that money, and that money is a lifeline to them. And so trust me, we're gonna protect those people. But it's in their name that we're weeding out the abuse so that we could always look after the right people.
SPEAKER_07Thank you very much, Rob. Thank you. The next day I headed to Reform UK's London headquarters to catch up with Richard Tice. Since Monday, the reaction had been intense. Some in the press calling the plans a long-overdue return to fairness, others branding them cruel and unworkable. I wanted to put these criticisms to Richard and hear his response.
SPEAKER_09Look at that. Bang on time. You didn't believe it, did you?
SPEAKER_07Perfect timing. 4.30 on the dot.
SPEAKER_09Spot on.
SPEAKER_07Fantastic. Uh, thank you so much. Cotty must get bored being interviewed all the time, don't you?
SPEAKER_09Well, it's uh it's always nice when it's uh let's say when it's constructive as opposed to the negativity of some of those in the media. Who need to get alive. Who don't seem to like it when it's sunny and it's warm and we can celebrate.
SPEAKER_07No, they don't want to be happy, do they?
SPEAKER_09They don't want to be happy, they don't want to enjoy wonderful English wine and sparkling wine that I've been promoting in the last couple of days.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, I I heard something about this, but I don't know what the gist of the story is.
SPEAKER_09So the gist of the story is we had a press conference which was about our brilliant plans to improve our welfare system to make welfare work, and in the questions afterwards, uh one of the journalists they uh they were upset when I said that actually why don't we why don't we enjoy the heat waves?
SPEAKER_04Why don't we stop being so gloomy? Uh we have had five heat waves this summer with more extreme weather expected in the form of flooding. Do you believe that climate change is real? And we know that reform doesn't uh think net zero is the way to solve it, so what is?
SPEAKER_09Um climate change has always happened, it always will. Maybe the smarter thing to do is to adapt to it uh than think arrogantly that you can stop it. And um I think you know, I'm old enough to remember 1976. Um this feels a bit uh a bit the same. That was fifty years ago. Um I think when it's a bit warm, let's enjoy it. And if it means that English wine and sparkling wine gets better and better, fantastic! That means we can take on the French, fantastic. I thought that was great news, but no, no, but Cory's the woke lefties, you've got to be doom, gloom, glum, you've got to be sad about everything, you can't celebrate brilliant in English products, English manufacturing, English growing, and I think we should celebrate it. And also they are generally slightly lower alcohol percentages, which is very much the direction of travel, which is also nice, so you can enjoy it without uh risking any form of headache in the morning.
SPEAKER_07Also celebrate. Yes, lovely stuff. You mentioned the uh welfare reforms announcement that you made. Obviously, there's been debate since yesterday amongst the media and the press and politicians and everybody else. I just thought I'd put some of these ideas to you. Is that is that alright? Great. So you've been very clear, and obviously Robert Genwick was very clear, that the welfare system's broken, but it has been criticised by some. People are saying that councils and charities don't have the capacity to organise hundreds of thousands of community work placements. So, how do you think this would actually sort of work in practice?
SPEAKER_09Because there are actually there are charities out there, uh, people who who want to help. This is literally how communities build, where you've got people across a range of different ages. I see it in in my constituency in Boston as getting there. So some wonderful church charities, um, museum charities who would love to get stuck in and just take on a couple of people uh just to say, yeah, we're gonna help you, we're gonna give you that opportunity, and I think we've just got to be much more ambitious and say, Do you know what? We're gonna try it. Some of it might work, the odd thing might not, but that's life. If you constantly have this negative, neh, can't do attitude, then frankly you'll never do anything, you'll never achieve anything, never set the alarm clock, just gradually stay in bed and wither away. When that's not who we are as families, as communities, that's not who we are as a country and a nation. We have to be bold and say, do you know what the current situation is not working on welfare? We need to make welfare work and we need to encourage people back into work, just achieving something.
SPEAKER_07Fantastic. Another criticism has been the 50 billion saving per year figure. Some people are saying that that's not achievable. What gives you the confidence that it is?
SPEAKER_09And because Robert's team have been looking at the numbers in detail for some time, we know that there's there's over a million overseas nationals on uh benefits of a variety of forms, as well as also, by the way, occupying hundreds and hundreds of thousands of affordable council, social housing, and and we just say it's just not fair. It really isn't fair that we build these homes, we've got our own young people who are looking to get their first home as an adult, and and all of a sudden, someone rocks up from overseas and says, I'm going to the front of the queue. It's just it's just unbritish, it's unfair, and it's not right.
SPEAKER_07Just off St Mark's Road in Enfield, North London, a railway runs hard against the boundary of family-run painting and decorating firm McLaughlin Decorating. Trains thunder past every 15 minutes, the low rumble, the sudden screech of brakes, a constant industrial heartbeat. Very athletic, aren't they? On Thursday, the 20th of August, I slipped through the firm's heavy metal gates. Beyond them was a working yard filled with the sharp, clean smell of fresh paint and primer. This wasn't Westminster. There were no marble corridors or grand halls, just busy tradespeople, the kind that actually build Britain. And it was here that Reform UK had chosen to launch its British Skills Revolution.
SPEAKER_01The problem you get with a lot of businesses is they say a lot of people come from the e-colleges or even universities and they can't work the photocopy it. And they've got skills, but they're totally mismatched for what the job wants. And what we need to do is make the connection between the employer and the trainer much closer. And you need to integrate your training to be exactly what the business needs. Absolutely. And what I hear is a lot of people, the apprentices or or or kids are going to the colleges and they're not actually getting the right training. And it's a waste of time.
SPEAKER_07In the back of a van, kitted out as a training space, Richard Tice and Sueella Brotherman, Reform's shadow education and skills spokesperson, were chatting with an instructor.
SPEAKER_09So youngster coming in here, you'd go on site, so how long might they be in here? How long would it be a sort of day? All day. Yeah, all day. One to one. One to one. Yeah, because it's really intense.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, it is. And I mean, speak to the the apprentices, I'm sure, but uh, for what feedback will we get? They love it.
SPEAKER_07I pulled Suela to one side for a quick chat.
SPEAKER_01Well, we're making a big announcement about the future of our country. This is how we save Britain, this is how we begin the renewal, this is how we rebuild our country, and it starts with young people and it starts with apprentices. We used we're the country of the Industrial Revolution. And yet we have a million young people who are not in employment, not in training, not in education. We have 700,000 graduates who are unemployed and we have massive skill shortages. So we need apprentices. And reform is very squarely on the side of those young people, some of whom will be receiving their GCSE results today, actually, who want to work hard, who want to graft, who want to move forward with their lives. And apprentices are the way forward for our country. They should be the backbone of our technical uh education and a skills renaissance. That's why we need a British skills revolution.
SPEAKER_08Hello, it's Nigel Farraj here. I hope you're enjoying these podcasts. Now take a moment to subscribe, hit the notification bell, and you'll never miss another episode. And if you like it, well, you could always leave us a five-star review.
SPEAKER_07The apprentices at McLaughlin are very much part of that revolution. Nineteen-year-old Lucas told me he'd been training for two and a half years. I asked him how he felt about reform's focus on skills.
SPEAKER_00I I I think it's it's good because I think we need more construction in school level education. So this is good because it's showing people that apprenticeships is more people can do it. I'd never really thought apprenticeship was a thing until I left school and I found these guys, so I think it's good that they're pushing apprenticeships to younger people.
SPEAKER_07Did this create an opportunity for you? Were you sort of looking for work and not quite finding what you wanted?
SPEAKER_00I was I was unemployed at the time and I was I live in Islington. I got referred to these guys by career service and then I did a training course with them for four weeks, trained me up, and then they took me in as an apprentice and now I'm here.
SPEAKER_07That's great. I've seen that there's been some people who've gone on to then do the apprenticeships here and then launch their own companies, they've got their own firms now. Would that be something you would be interested in?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, when I finish my apprenticeship, I'll definitely stay with these guys for a bit because it's good company, nice people, but I don't know what I'd do. I'll probably stick with Payton decorating, I'll probably go off and do my own things. Just from being in the industry, you meet people who offer you jobs. So I've got other people that are saying I've got payton decorating jobs for me, so I can go different places with my trade and just figure it out wherever the job comes up, I'll go, you know.
SPEAKER_07And life is better now that you guys are doing doing these apprenticeships.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. No, no debt from uni, that's all I care about, you know what I mean. My mates have all gone to uni this year and last year, they're all coming out of 30, 50 grand debt, and I'm coming up 30 50 grand up, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_07So plus we get a lot of people going into university who are then taking degrees in things that aren't really gonna lead into, you know, they're not coming out as doctors or engineers.
SPEAKER_00Well I I know someone who's gone to uni, he's doing um I think it was geology or something like that, and he has no intention of doing anything to do with that in his career. So I said to him, Why are you doing that? I'm just going to uni just because a lot of parents they expect their kids to go to uni, blah blah blah, you know. So I feel like it's an ex expectation from parents that kids have got to go to uni and getting qualification and then go out and get a job. Whereas it's not like that anymore, it's all changing, you know.
SPEAKER_07So when it was finally time for the press conference to get underway, Richard stepped forward to open the event.
SPEAKER_09Good morning, everybody. Very good to see you here at McLaughlin Painting and Decorating. And what better day to be talking about apprenticeships, about training than on GTSD Results Day? The number of apprenticeships aged between 16 and 18 has fallen by about a half from about 40% to around 20% in the last seven to eight years. That is actually nothing short of a scandal because it's literally where apprenticeships should start. In particular in trade and skills, what they call intermediate apprenticeships, again, that percentage has collapsed. That's exactly the wrong uh place and space of where it should be. So what we're announcing today is is the reverse of that.
SPEAKER_07Zwella then set out why she believes Britain has a skills shortage, a long flare-right push that sent too many young people to university, leaving them with debt and the country short of skilled tradespeople and reliant on cheap foreign labour.
SPEAKER_01So that is why we are announcing today the Apprenticeship's Wage Credit. And this is going to build our skills revolution. So our Apprenticeships Wage Credit will offer a wage credit of worth 30% to every small or medium-sized business that hires a new young apprentice. This will save the average business over £8,000 on the cost of employing a young apprentice. It is a 30% cut for businesses taking on an apprentice. It's a significant amount. It's over £4,000 a year.
SPEAKER_07She also announced a new incentive designed to keep apprentices with the firms that trained them.
SPEAKER_01Many SMEs are hesitant about taking on an apprentice because they're nervous about the risk. They're nervous that when they pay the wage and they spend the time, many of them will just leave. So not only will we invest a 30% stake in a young apprentice's wages at the beginning of their training, but we will also introduce an apprenticeship's retention bonus. Alongside the cut of hiring an apprentice, cutting the cost of employment, employing an apprentice by £8,000 will give apprentices themselves a retention bonus. £2,000 to apprentices who show loyalty and stay with the business that trained them for at least two years after they complete their apprenticeship. Young people starting their careers will be incentivized to stay with a direct cash bonus tax-free paid straight into their bank account.
SPEAKER_07She finished with a direct message to parents and young people still deciding which path to take.
SPEAKER_01So my advice to those young people today getting their results, my advice to those grandparents and those parents looking at the young people in their families who may be getting their results today, be careful. Don't get ripped off by the great university scam. Don't waste your time studying for a pointless degree at a mediocre university. If you want to work hard, if you want to move forward, earn a wage and have opportunities in your life, take up and look for apprentices. And a reform UK government will ensure that those opportunities exist.
SPEAKER_07Outside in the yard, I caught up with a 19-year-old apprentice called Olivia, who told me she'd been working with McLaughlin for just eight months. She said Suela had the right approach for young people.
SPEAKER_02I think that's the perfect message to be honest, because even when I left school, it was that message given to me of no, you need to go to uni. I didn't want to go to uni, I didn't want to go and do extra learning because I knew the plan I wanted to take. I wanted to be physical, I wanted to get myself out there. Whereas I think people are starting to clock onto that and starting to realise, okay, maybe I don't need to do this to become this. And I think an apprentice and apprenticeships in general are the way forward because not only are you getting an income, you're learning, you're building something for yourself and the people around you. You have so many ways to go with it. I think it can you can be really successful through it.
SPEAKER_07Kevin McLoughlin is the firm's boss and a former apprentice himself. He told me apprenticeships have been vital to the company's success.
SPEAKER_05There's only one reason it's an investment for the company, it's your future work, it's your future staff, you know who's going to be performing for you. It's the backbone, it's the best investment I've ever made.
SPEAKER_07Um, in terms of the announcement that was made today, what did you think about that?
SPEAKER_05Uh I think it's it's needed. I think it's the beginning of announcements because um what I didn't say in the talk in there because it it was so quick, we we the industry have been really let down by FE. So what I'm using now is independent people that really work for us. But but to subsidise the apprentice, we've got to get small more businesses to train, and that's the the crux. If we can get them to train like it was 30, 40, 50 years ago, it will cut down the queues of unemployed kids, and but it will also get this country moving again because we we're uh we we're in a doldrums at the moment that construction always comes good.
SPEAKER_07So you feel you feel like further education has failed you, but ultimately is it government that you feel that's failed you failed, and and how long's that been sort of going on for with it if that's the case?
SPEAKER_0515 years it's got to be government because government uh control FE and it's all they control education, it's all about results, and and absolutely kids come out of they leave school. One of the big factors was kids leaving school at 16, they stopped it. So if they don't go on to do A levels and they can't get an apprenticeship, they get sent to a unit uh FE college. They'll do two years there and they come out of a bit of paper that is worthless, they're unemployable, and that is a big part of the unemployed people. It's a real big issue, they're no good to the industry because FE and the government think they're training people, they don't deal with industry. So they're not training them to the right standards. Well, no, let's change to their standards, whatever they might be, they're unemployable.
SPEAKER_04Soella, can you can you just face us and hold up the brush? We'll get the plastic shelf for you. Just look to me. Just look to this lens for me.
SPEAKER_07A few minutes later, Suella pulled on a pair of white overalls and joined the apprentices for a crash course in painting.
SPEAKER_01I've done it at home. Oh god, it's always got on there and then it's and keeping it straight, you've got to keep your hand really straight. How do you how do you is it practical? I think it's where you hold the brush. Really? What's the best way to hold the brush?
SPEAKER_02It depends on the hand. I mean I can paint. How do you hold it? Hold it like that. Okay, top out your finger, and then you can like make it really blend in nicely.
SPEAKER_01Whereas mine's not blended in at all.
SPEAKER_02Yes, it depends how the pressure point how you hold it.
SPEAKER_01Oh gosh. It's great. Okay. Amazing.
SPEAKER_07As the press began to drift away, I grabbed one final word with Suela, and I began by asking her why the number of apprenticeships had fallen so far.
SPEAKER_01There are a lot of reasons for it. One reason is, I'm afraid, the apprenticeship levy. When that was introduced by the last Conservative government in 2017, uh, we saw a fall in the number of apprenticeships afterwards. Um, another reason is the bureaucracy involved in taking on an apprentice. Uh many businesses tell me that they pay the levy and they find it far too convoluted a process to actually reclaim the levy and take on an apprentice. It's bureaucratic, it's high risk, it involves a lot of regulation. So I think that is another big obstacle to taking on apprentices. And lastly, the cost. A lot of businesses are being um hit from all sides when it comes to extra costs, whether it's the government's uh increase to national insurance, whether it's energy costs, whether it's uh all sorts of um challenges now with uh keeping um taking on new people. So um I think all of those factors have combined to contribute to a decline in the number of apprenticeship starts.
SPEAKER_07So you're targeting 600,000 apprenticeship starts a year by the end of reform's first parliament. How achievable is that?
SPEAKER_01I think it's eminently achievable, but it will need a radical overhaul of the system. Um we're running at around 300,000 now. And if you look at the breakdown, there's been a very steep decline in the number of young apprentices at level two, so that's uh like entry-level apprentices, and the number of apprentices at small and medium-sized businesses. The vast majority of apprentices are over 25. Um, and so there's a huge opportunity, I think, for 16-year-olds, many of those people who might be getting their GCSE results today, uh, to think about apprenticeships as a route. They've really got to be the backbone of our skills revolution. You're earning, you're learning on the job. Sometimes that can learn lead to a degree, um, and you're not going to be saddled with £50,000 worth of debt. For many young people, it is really a viable path, a great path to you know to success. And I really want to uh encourage more young people to take up apprenticeships.
SPEAKER_07No doubt there will be pushback against the idea that taxpayers would be subsidizing 30% of the wages of young apprentices under reforms scheme. What's your response to that pushback?
SPEAKER_01Well, right now the taxpayer is getting a raw deal because the taxpayer is funding a million NEETs. Right now, the taxpayer is funding over a million 16 to 24-year-olds who are on welfare and they should be in some form of training or working. Um right now the taxpayer is funding £22 billion worth of student loans, uh, hundreds of billions of pounds of which will not be paid back and has to be written off because of poor graduate employment outcomes. So right now, the British taxpayer is being failed and not getting value for money. Uh, and what we're doing is we are going to divert some of that wasted money to something that's going to lead to young people in work, it's going to plug labour market shortages, and it's going to contribute to the growth of our economy.
SPEAKER_07And finally, you mentioned in your speech the the university scam, the great university scam. So for a 16-year-old deciding between university and an apprenticeship, what would you say to them?
SPEAKER_01I would say think carefully. So if you've you've got a place or are aiming to get a place at a good top quality university, and the course has a very clear career trajectory, then I think go for it. And listen, that was my path. I I I was lucky enough to study at Cambridge University and I practiced as a lawyer for 10 years, and um it was a good path for me. Um, but if you're not in that category, then I really would urge young people to think about an apprentice and not waste their time or money on a mediocre university uh doing a pointless degree and coming out with £50,000 worth of debt. Think about an apprenticeship. Think about um other opportunities to start earning uh earlier down the line, because that will set you up for many more options later down the line.
SPEAKER_07The Reform UK podcast was produced and presented by me, Ray Addison. Thanks for listening. And if you'd like to chat about the show, you can join our community on Facebook. You can also follow me at Ray Addison Live on X. We'll be back again on Monday. Goodbye.
