Brendon

I grew up watching my uncle Tony wire houses across South London. He'd take me on site during school holidays, show me how to run cables through cavity walls, explain why you never cut corners on safety. When his firm folded in 2016, I thought it was just bad luck. Recession, cash flow, these things happen. But I always knew I'd come back to electrical work properly qualified. I wanted to earn enough to get my own place, maybe even buy somewhere in Lewisham one day instead of sharing a cramped flat with three other people.

By early 2023, I'd had enough of agency work. Different site every week, no security, no progression. I decided to get my Level 3 electrical qualification through the Construction Industry Training Board. CITB seemed like the obvious route - they exist specifically to train construction workers, funded by a levy on the industry itself. I filled out their application, explaining my background, my uncle's training, my three years of site experience. I was excited. Finally, a proper path forward.

Two weeks later, CITB wrote back. "There is no funding available for individual applications at this time." They directed me to contact local training providers who might have CITB-funded places. Fair enough, I thought. They probably work through colleges and private centres rather than training people directly.

I tried South London College first. The admissions officer was apologetic but clear: electrical courses were oversubscribed and they wouldn't have places until 2025. "Everyone wants to be a sparky these days," she said. "High demand, limited capacity." Lewisham College had the same story. Two-year waiting list, maybe longer. I could put my name down, but no guarantees.

I contacted three private training centres across South London: one in Bermondsey, one in Croydon, one in Greenwich. Same response from all of them. "CITB funding has been cut," the manager in Bermondsey told me. "We can't afford to run courses without full enrolment. The margins are too tight."

This didn't make sense. If demand was so high that colleges had two-year waiting lists, why couldn't private centres fill their courses? I started visiting training centres in person instead of just calling. I wanted to see what was actually happening.

Greenwich Skills Centre was the revelation. I walked into their electrical workshop and found it empty. Brand new equipment still in packaging. Conduit benders that had never been used. Test meters in their factory boxes. The workshop could easily handle twenty people, but only eight were enrolled in the current course.

I asked to speak to the manager. She seemed embarrassed as she explained the situation. "We have capacity for twenty trainees," she admitted. "But Treasury rules mean we can't access the levy funds unless we hit minimum quotas. If we don't get at least fifteen signed up, the funding gets pulled. So we either run courses at a loss or we don't run them at all."

I stared at the empty benches, the unused equipment. "But you've got people like me wanting to get on courses."

"I know," she said. "It's mad. The equipment's here, the instructors are here, the demand's here. But the funding structure doesn't work for smaller cohorts, even when those smaller cohorts would still produce qualified electricians."

That evening, I was talking to my neighbour Malik about it. He's a qualified sparky who'd been unemployed for six months. "Half the electricians I know are out of work," he said. "And you can't get trained as one. Meanwhile, look around the area."

He was right. I started paying attention as I walked through Lewisham. Housing developments sitting unfinished. Sites with foundations poured and frames up, but nothing happening for weeks at a time. I asked around and kept hearing the same thing: shortage of skilled trades. Electricians, plumbers, bricklayers. The work was there, approved and funded, but the workers weren't.

The contradiction was right in front of me. People who wanted to train as electricians couldn't get on courses. Qualified electricians couldn't find steady work. Training centres had empty workshops with brand new equipment. Housing developments were stalled waiting for skilled trades. And at every step, someone said "there is no funding" or "the budget has been cut."

I started to question what that actually meant. The same government that issues British pounds was telling me it couldn't find enough pounds to train British workers to build British houses. The people existed - I was one of them. The buildings existed - I'd seen the empty workshops. The need existed - I could see the unfinished developments. The equipment existed - still in its packaging at Greenwich Skills Centre.

What exactly was it that "there was no money" for? The government that prints the notes and mints the coins was claiming it couldn't find enough of them to connect the people who wanted work with the work that needed doing. That's when I realised this wasn't about money at all. It was about choices.

Treasury rules that pulled funding from courses with low enrolment, even when those courses would still train electricians. CITB structures that worked for big contractors but not for individual applicants. Colleges that treated training as a business rather than as infrastructure. Each door that closed was a choice someone made, wrapped in the language of financial impossibility.

I used to accept the excuse that "there was no money." I hear it differently now. The government that prints the notes and mints the coins told me it couldn't find enough of them to train the people who were standing right there, ready to work. The real question was never about money. It was about whether the people existed, whether the skills could be taught, whether the materials were available. They were. All of them.

The excuse wasn't a fact. It was a choice wrapped in the language of impossibility. The same logic as a household saying "we can't afford it," except a household doesn't issue its own currency. The government does. The limit was never the money. The limit was the willingness to spend it into the places and the people who needed it.

I'm still in that flat-share, still doing agency work, still watching housing developments sit unfinished while qualified tradespeople stay unemployed and people like me can't get trained. But I understand now that this isn't just bad luck or market forces. It's the result of treating government spending like household debt, when what we actually needed was government spending to put people to work building the homes that already had planning permission. This isn't just my story. It's the story of every constituency where people and needs exist side by side while someone in Westminster says the cupboard is bare.