Up to £10billion should be invested by the government in 250,000 green apprenticeships over the next three years to help stave off a youth unemployment crisis, a leading environmental group has urged.
Friends of the Earth said such funding would cost far less than the £39billion in lost wages that it estimates would result if all currently unemployed 16 to 24-year-olds were to remain without a job for 12 months.
It also argued that a green apprenticeship scheme with wage subsidies of between 50 and 100 per cent would cost £6.2billion to £10.6billion over five years and could act as a natural successor to the furlough scheme.