A Conservative MP has come under fire after claiming that young unemployed workers should busk to raise money for their travel fares, and work for less than the minimum wage.

Damian Collins, the MP for Folkestone and Hythe, also reportedly said that apprenticeships were more valuable to some employers than formal post-16 education, and that those who stay at school to do A-levels were often not ready for work.

At a time when more than a million under-25s are unemployed in Britain, Collins raised doubts about the commitment of youngsters to find work.

Metro newspaper reported that Collins told a Channel 4 Battlefront youth unemployment event in his constituency: "A businessman I know told me: 'I would much rather get a school leaver at 16. Get them to do an apprenticeship for two or three years. At 19 they will have the skills necessary to be able to enter the workforce on the national minimum wage. Someone who does a one-year course after 18 won't be ready."'

His suggestion that young people should busk came after Labour's Stella Creasy pointed out the plight of young people struggling to cover the fares needed to look for jobs.

Collins said 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".

"Getting the job you've wanted in a city like London has always taken a lot of personal motivation," Collins said.

Liam Byrne, the shadow work and pensions secretary, called on Collins to apologise. "This tells you everything you need to know about the Tories' attitude to getting our young people back to work. They are out of touch, out of ideas and frankly out of order.

"In the week when a cross-party select committee slammed the government's youth contract, it is a complete disgrace for a Tory A-lister to blame young people for his government's failure. Damian Collins must now apologise to the million young people out of work that his government is letting down so badly."

David Miliband, the former Labour foreign secretary, said: "For the Tories to say: 'Don't bother getting an education, go out busking', that is not a serious solution."

The TUC said Collins' suggestions were not the solution to young people's efforts to find work.

A union spokesman said: "Asking young people to busk for their train fares and to work for less than the minimum wage will do nothing to cure long-term youth joblessness and will serve only to encourage bad practice among employers.

"If Mr Collins is serious about helping young people to become more employable, he should be urging the government to reverse its policies which have seen the education maintenance allowance axed, the future jobs funds scrapped and the cost of going to university tripled."

Collins was not available for comment on Thursday morning.