Construction unions have called on the government to give public sector contracts only to firms that train young people on projects
T&G national construction secretary Bob Blackman said the government indicated a year ago that it aimed to do this but nothing had happened.

He said it was a disgrace that contracts were being awarded to contractors that were not training any young people when training was taking place on high鈥損rofile private contracts.

He said: "Look at Terminal 5 鈥� an exceptional example of a private client [BAA] and contractor [Laing O'Rourke] training hundreds of apprentices. There is no reason why the government should not demand this on public sector contracts."

Blackman said that he would keep pressing the case. He said that he had the support of UCATT on the issue.

UCATT general secretary George Brumwell said that the government needed to have a more robust approach to training young people on public sector sites.

He said: "The government needs to follow the example of the housing sector, where housing associations only give contracts to companies that train people."

However, construction minister Nigel Griffiths told 好色先生TV last week that the government wanted firms to train people voluntarily.

He said that in the long run contractors would realise that it was in their interests to train more people because of the shortages of skilled tradesemen.

The unions' demands come after 好色先生TV revealed last week that the Construction Industry Training Board planned to create project-led "virtual training companies", where young people could work with all contractors on a scheme.

CITB chief executive Peter Lobban said that there could be scope for minimum training standards on projects but it would be difficult to bring this in in the short term.