For 20 years I’ve been warning successive governments that Britain’s obsession with universities and contempt for apprenticeships would end in disaster.

Well, congratulations Westminster. You’ve now run out of road! A devastating new report from national training provider JTL reveals that England has lost 25,700 plumbers since 2018. That’s 16% of the workforce gone, with numbers predicted to collapse another 30% by 2039.

And here’s the real scandal. England needs more than 8,500 new plumbing recruits annually to meet demand and replace those leaving, but the latest figures show just 2,150 apprenticeship starts. That’s barely a quarter of what’s needed!

Meanwhile, apprentices account for a pathetic 5.2% of the plumbing workforce, compared with 14.2% in the electrical trade. And what are the geniuses in Westminster doing? Promising millions of new homes, a green energy revolution, heat pumps everywhere, hydrogen gas systems, massive infrastructure projects and enough data centres to figure out the meaning of life.

But again, I ask – where are all the plumbers needed to make all the promises come true? You can’t build houses with ministerial speeches. You can’t install heating systems with government press releases. And you can’t train a skilled plumber overnight.

Yet politicians continue announcing targets without the slightest evidence that Britain has the workforce to deliver them. It’s not ambitious government; It’s not even industrial-scale incompetence, it’s knowingly and repeatedly lying to the public.

I built a £150 million plumbing operation from a rusty old van and a bag of second-hand tools into a business that created 1,200 apprenticeships. I know what training costs, and I know how vital apprentices are to Britain’s future. But successive governments have spent decades encouraging youngsters into university while treating skilled trades like second-class careers.

Now we’re paying the price. And unless something changes immediately, these grand housing and green energy promises will remain exactly that, promises.

JTL is absolutely right to demand greater apprenticeship incentives for small businesses, priority status for plumbing and an end to delays approving training standards, but I’d go further. Much further.

STOP WASTING MONEY ON SKILLS STRATEGIES AND START PAYING EMPLOYERS TO TRAIN APPRENTICES! It’s that simple and that urgent! Pay employers apprentices’ wages. Make taking on apprentices a financial opportunity, not a burden. Because without employers willing and able to train the next generation, Britain’s skills crisis will become a national economic catastrophe.

And every politician promising otherwise is writing cheques that Britain’s workforce simply cannot cash!