Tory MP denies telling young unemployed workers to busk for money Damian Collins denies telling unemployed workers to start busking. Photograph: Katherine Rose for the Guardian A Conservative MP has denied suggesting that young unemployed workers should busk to raise money for their travel fares to find work, insisting the claim was "total nonsense." Damian Collins, the MP for Folkestone and Hythe, clarified comments reported in the media after he attended a Channel 4 Battlefront youth unemployment event on Wednesday. He was quoted as saying that when he had worked for the advertising agency M&C Saatchi, the creative director had told him he had "busked to raise the train fare to get into London to hawk his book of work [portfolio] around until he got his break." His comments surfaced in the Metro newspaper on Thursday, raising eyebrows and prompting Labour's Liam Byrne to call on him to apologise. Collins insisted he had not been suggesting that others should follow the example cited. "I have never said that people should busk to get to jobs," he told the Guardian. The way it has been interpreted is completely wrong. I gave an example of somebody many years ago who did that, but I am not saying by any means it's an example for others to follow. The idea that I have suggested that people should busk to get around is totally and absolutely untrue. He also denied suggesting young people who stay at school to do A-levels often aren't employable. He was quoted as saying: "A businessman I know told me: 'I would much rather get a school leaver at 16. Collins told the Guardian he had merely cited a conversation he had had with an employer in the hair and beauty industry who had told him that young people who do beauty courses at college from the age of 16 to 18 would be better placed doing an apprenticeship because this would put them in a better position to get a full-time job than someone who had studied the same subject for two years at college. The comments about minimum wage was in the context of the longer-term gains of taking the apprenticeship route, he said. What I said in the context of these remarks was that this was why it was very important for young people to get good advice so that they were sure they were doing what was right for them.