Skills and Employment Minister Matt Hancock is to support the launch of a major skills initiative by the New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP).

Mr Hancock, MP for West Suffolk, will be attending the an LEP Conference and Skills Exhibition, to be staged at Wherstead Park, Ipswich, on November 28, at which a new Skills Manifesto will be unveiled.

More than 300 business leaders and educators in Suffolk and Norfolk have already helped shape the manifesto at two recent Skills Summits hosted by New Anglia.

Research is also underway to gather good ideas and examples of best practice that are already in place and working well across the private and public sectors.

The manifesto will provide a strategy and action plan for giving young people the best possible career opportunities in business, and focus on developing and adapting the skills of those already in work and those who do not currently have a job.

The aim to to help give local businesses access to the best available skills as the economy grows and the New Anglia region ontinues to establish itself as a global business destination.

Andy Wood, chairman of New Anglia LEP, said: “This manifesto will be for everyone who has a stake in the future success of our economy and in achieving the LEP’s target of 65,000 new jobs in Norfolk and Suffolk by 2025.

“We have some of the world’s leading companies based here, with many thousands more competing and winning in the UK and global marketplace. That’s why a razor sharp focus on skills is absolutely essential for growth and for securing and creating jobs.

“We are delighted that Skills Minister Matt Hancock will be launching our manifesto and underlining that success depends on the essential partnership between business and education.”

The LEP Conference and Skills Exhibition is being sponsored by the East of England Co-operative Society, which is based at Wherstead Park, and supported by CEG Productions.

Other speakers at the event will include entrepreneurs Paul Dreschler, chairman and chief executive of Wates plc, who also chairs Business in the Community’s education and leadership team, and Will King founder of King of Shaves, the main competitor to Gillette.

Dr Wood added: “This conference will break new ground. It will set out a clear unified skills strategy together with an action plan and timetable for delivery.

“It will draw on ideas and experience locally and from around the world, and will demonstrate the visible leadership the LEP is bringing to achieve growth and secure jobs.”

To book a place at the conference, visit www.newanglia.co.uk .