Prince Charles launches cadet initiative

On a visit to Jaguar Land Rover’s education centre in Halewood last week, Prince Charles spoke to pupils from All Saints, Knowsley. Head Girl Elizabeth Murphy said: “He was very friendly; he asked us what we were doing at school and whether we were interested in becoming engineers.”

During his visit, the Prince announced a £2.4 million boost for his Business Class scheme, which helps firms work with schools in deprived areas, and he launched the Industrial Cadets initiative, which will help young people get involved in manufacturing and engineering.

One of the apprentices at JLR, Matthew McLoughin, said: “It’s brilliant to get recognition from ‘people at the top’ with this kind of visit. I’m just in my second year of the apprenticeship, so it’s a big boost to have such a high-profile visitor.” Mr McLoughin is one of 20 apprentices at JLR in his year, from 3,000 people that applied.

The cadet scheme has its roots in the Prince’s visit to Teesside steel firm Tata, when he expressed his fear that, “unless industry nurtures the next generation of talent, Britain is in danger of losing its world-class reputation in engineering and manufacturing”.

Before speaking to the pupils at Halewood, Prince Charles met workers at the JLR Halewood factory, where he was shown the production line that makes a car every 82sec. Kevin Jamieson, one of the trainers at the factory, said: “I showed him how the process of attaching a headlamp worked and let him finish it off.”

The Prince was visiting the Halewood plant as part of the celebrations for its 50th-anniversary year. It was first opened by Ford in 1962 and taken over by Jaguar in 2000. The first Land Rover Freelander was built there in 2006.