ROAD TRANSPORT (INDUSTRIAL TRAINING LEVY)

HC Deb 21 January 1971 vol 809 cc1414-42

10.2 p.m.

Mr. Marcus Fox (Shipley)

I beg to move, That this House takes note of the Industrial Training Levy (Road Transport) Order, 1970. I realise, in rising to make my maiden speech, that I am being rather unorthodox, and I hasten to add that I think it would be wrong of me to expect the indulgence of the House when some of the things I may say could be taken as being controversial. But then I am encouraged by the thought that my predecessor was Mr. Geoffrey Hirst, who was never orthodox. He was a good House of Commons man and a good constituency Member. If I do as well as he did, I shall be satisfied.

I will say little about my constituency, because I hope to be here for many years to enlarge upon that subject. I will only say that it is not the most beautiful in the United Kingdom but that the people who reside in Bingley, Baildon and Shipley are the finest. There is a unique inheritance for me in following Geoffrey Hirst because not only do I have a certain laxity towards the Opposition Front Bench but extend it to my own as well. Perhaps I am making a good start by opening this debate.

I want the House to take note of this Order because I hope that when it is presented to us again for next year certain changes will have been made. Before I came to this House, I was involved in transport. I have had experience of the Road Transport Industry Training Board. Since I arrived here, I have had many letters from constituents, and from the letters of support from both sides of the House I can appreciate that this is a problem to all of us.

It is a good thing to make clear from the beginning that one is not arguing whether there should be training or not. It is a matter of getting the best training. I believe that the Industrial Training Act, 1964, at that time was right. But we established four training boards then and now we have 28. I never envisaged that the bandwaggon would roll with such speed. How it does roll on! I wonder how many people realise the implications. Let us think about them.

I am not arguing about training—it is right that we should have an adequate supply of well trained men and women, it is right that training should be improved wherever it can, and it is right that the costs should be shared as equally as possible. But the Road Transport Industry Training Board is concerned with three groups of people.

The first group is those who receive training. They must feel that the training is useful, practical and will be of advantage to them. They must feel that it will enable them to do their jobs better and at the same time enhance their future prospects. The second group consists of the men or the firms who have to pay for the training, and it is right that they should feel that it is advantageous to them and their firms. The third group is the people who do the training, and this is where we really come to the great weakness. They must have the confidence of the first two groups I have mentioned and it must be felt that they are serving the best interests of the industry they are supposed to lead or to serve.

On these counts, I am sorry to have to say that the Road Transport Industry Training Board has failed. I want to list one or two failures. The board will argue, "But we have trained 35 per cent. of the people who come within the scope of the board". That is more than 300,000 people. But what have they been trained to do? Is it training for training's sake? This, I am afraid, is the situation we find ourselves in. There is too much of, "How much can we claim back in grant and let us fit training to it?" instead of, "How necessary is the training?" I want to quote my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Social Services who said that the strategy of the 1964 Act was right but he added: But in parts the idea has run riot. We never dreamt of courses for petrol pump attendants. Bureaucracies have grown up. Grant-hunting is a new management skill. We shall look to the boards to do only what is really necessary. Is the tail wagging the dog? Let us remember that this is only supposed to be a means to an end and not an end in itself.

My criticism of the board is that, firstly, it has no control of costs. The red flag was flying in 1968, when it was £2½ million in the red. Did that deter the board? What happened in the following year? It was £3½ million in the red. The liabilities of the board today are £6 million in excess of its assets. How can the board say to any businessman in any small firm, "Take guidance from us and we will put you on your feet?" We know where any firm will end up if it takes guidance from an organisation like that.

Secondly, there is concern about the type of training being offered, the ever-increasing recommendations from the board, the different courses it offers. It is all totally unrealistic. There is an obsession with off-the-job training. I agree that with certain jobs it is necessary to take people from their normal place of work, but is it necessary for someone to be sent 200 miles away to learn how to unload a vehicle and how to stack things so that the top box does not fall off?

The industry did not do so badly in the old days—I speak from experience—[Laughter.] It is all very well for the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Leslie Huckfield) to laugh, but the industry had to find people to do this work, and if a businessman could not find a driver to drive his truck, his business ground to a halt. To have a licence to drive a public service vehicle for 40 years, one has to conform to the law and take a stringent test. I know, because I took it and failed. I did not think that that system was all that bad.

I turn to the subject of staffing. In 1968 we were told that there would be no increase in the administrative staff, but by two years later there was a 50 per cent. increase. So the story has gone on—extravagant exercises in public relations and in publications. For instance, there are forecourt attendants—in Yorkshire we call them petrol pump staff. For their training there is a 12-page training booklet, a 41-page instructors' guide, eight easy-to-learn booklets of ten pages each and eight plastic memory aid cards. After all this I should expect a clean windscreen. With all this, the paper work grows.

It is not just the levy which is the evil of all this. The evil concerns the hidden hours taken up with filling in forms. I have a letter from a firm not far from where I live and which I have known for years. It employs 35 staff and owns 18 vehicles and nine coaches. It has operated 20 training programmes with five for the office staff. It has written to me to say that it intends to discontinue the programme and passing the cost of the R.T.I.T.B. to its customers, having paid £1,087 in levy for this year. It is right to do so, because it found that it was uneconomic to pay a training officer out of its own pocket. What a nonsense all this is!

This leads me to two main criticisms. The first is the inability of small firms to benefit from this training board. They are defeated by the red tape. It should not be thought that this is just a small matter, for 52,000 firms are involved employing 900,000 employees. Firms employing ten workers or fewer represent 78 per cent. of the firms in the industry, which means that 30,000 firms have 10 employees or fewer. To remove all these firms from the scope of the levy all we have to provide is that firms paying emoluments of less than £5,000 a year, approximately £100 a week as a wages bill, will be removed from paying the levy, and overnight 30,000 firms will find that they have none of this red tape to cope with. And what will this cost the board? It will cost £420,000 out of a total levy of £17½ million. Of that £420,000, £200,000 goes on administration, staff and facilities. For heaven's sake, why has this not been done years ago?

The biggest complaint of all—the postbag of all hon. Members present will confirm this—is with the levy grant system. The concern can be understood when one remembers that this board levies the third highest levy of all the 28 boards. Half of those boards, approximately 14, have to collect only 50 per cent. of the R.T.I.T.B. levy, so we cannot claim that they are efficient. We are not talking about chickenfeed here. In the coming year, the board expects to raise £20 million. It is no wonder that people and firms are bitter about this.

Let me move on to the system of collecting grant within this board. The biggest complaint is that the diverse industries are not satisfied with the present system, that they are all lumped together, and it is assumed that their training needs are the same. Nothing could be further from the truth. The road haulage industry is incensed because it only gets back half in grant of what it pays in levy. The Passenger Vehicle Operators' Association is on the wrong side. The motor agents do quite well, but whether they are in debit or in credit, none of them wants anything to do with the board in its present form. They are unanimous in their condemnation, and they want to have a complete change.

There are so many examples of injustice. I have here a letter from a Hampshire firm of motor cycle agents. They are most concerned that they have been asked several times for payment of levies. They only sell motor cycles— Should any of our staff attend these courses, they would no doubt return as trained motor car storemen or mechanics. This would in turn encourage them to leave the motor cycle industry, at our expense. The effect of this would be similar to a member of the Conservative Party being compelled to pay a levy to finance the funds of the Labour Party … under threat that refusal would mean prosecution. We have written to the board informing them that we would have no objection to subsidising a training course, provided it was to the motor cycle industry's advantage as a whole, but until this comes about, we have no intention of meeting any of the payment demands. They are right to say this. We must get down to making the training fit the industries.

I do not argue from the point of view that these boards should be dispensed with overnight. There is widespread dissatisfaction, which we all accept, but in the case of this board, what we have to do is to decentralise, and there are three obvious industries to centre the new organisation upon. These are the three which form advisory committees under the existing board, the road haulage industry, the retail motor industry and the passenger road transport industry. They would automatically be responsible for raising their own levy and for deciding how grants are given. There is nothing new in this. The Wool, Flax and Jute Textile Board already does this, and it works. It has 18 different sections and it levies what it needs to do the necessary training. It is important that these boards should be run by people within the industry and that we get the training that is necessary. This interim measure—it is only an interim measure—I hope will get us back to the idea of thinking that training should go back to the practical people who are involved in these industries.

At the end of the day, with certain safeguards, the Government should be able to opt out. What is wrong about that? We all want to be cost-effective. If the industry is being milked because it is paying excessive levies, it has that bit less in its coffers. I hope that hon. Members on both sides of the House can see that.

There are many ideas to develop. I believe that, if a firm is doing training which is acceptable and successful, it should be able to opt out of paying levy. There are some big firms who have done very nicely out of training, and it is time that we called a halt to it. Surely it was never the intention of the previous Conservative Government that a profit should be made out of training. I am sure that other hon. Members can confirm that large firms in many other industries have gone hell-bent to make a profit out of training. That is regrettable, because it was never our intention. If training is worth while, it is degrading to look at it in this light.

In the Gracious Speech, we were promised a review of training boards. I appreciate that it is not yet ready, but I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister of State will say a little about the future hopes and that we shall not see a continuation of the system which operates now.

There are too many sacred cows in this country. I do not want to see training boards getting into that category. We have to look for a new concept of training which, after all, is a partnership. No industry would become involved in training unless it looked at all the implications. That means getting the trade unions involved, and getting those others involved who know what the job is about. I hope that we can look forward to my hon. Friend relieving us of many of these anxieties. If we are presented with a similar Statutory Instrument next year, many of us will not be as happy as we have been tonight.

10.22 p.m.

Mr. Leslie Backfield (Nuneaton)

It is with some pleasure that I follow the hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Fox). I do not know whether he recalls the occasion, but the last time that we spoke together was at a symposium at the new University of Bradford. We found ourselves on opposite sides of the political fence. I find this evening that I disagree with a great deal of what he has said, but since, once upon a time, maiden speeches were non-controversial, I will not disagree directly with what he said. Having heard him, I feel sure that he will make some very worth-while contributions to our debates. Certainly he has made a very good start in some of his extremely relevant comments towards the end of his contribution this evening.

The hon. Gentleman has been widely reported in the technical Press as wanting to wind up the Road Transport Industry Training Board altogether. I presume from what he has said that he has been misreported to some extent.

I think that it behoves the Government to make clear their attitude to this industry training board. It is not clear whether they would like to see it wound up completely, having after all introduced the Act setting it up, or whether they would like to see its structure modified. We need a more definite statement of policy, and I hope that we shall hear from the Minister of State some clear indications of the Government's proposals. If they intend merely to propose some slight modifications, I would be inclined to support their proposals. If on the other hand they are making out a case for abolition, they would attract my complete condemnation. I give a fair number of lectures on transport, some of which I hope would qualify for the grants which we are discussing. Attendance at these lectures by the road transport section of the industry is always very sparse. The disparity between those attending from the road transport section and from the railways, the Air Corporations and the Port of London Authority is very wide.

As a one-time lorry driver and member of the Transport and General Worker's Union, one thing that has struck me about the road haulage and garage side of the industry is the complete lack of career structure. On the railway side of the industry and the public service vehicle side there are comprehensive training programmes and facilities for training are offered by the National Bus Company and by various municipal corporation bus fleets. Some independent bus operators offer training. On the other hand, on the road haulage side, apart from cadetship schemes which used to be offered by British Road Services, now part of the National Freight Corporation, there is almost a complete lack of training schemes. If hon. Gentlemen opposite read The Times, they will see from this morning's issue that since the board was set up 95 graduates have been attracted into road transport.

The computer routing of vehicles and physical distribution management is a science. The hon. Member for Shipley will recognise this, because the new University of Bradford is rapidly becoming a centre for physical distribution management. To enable people to acquire these scientific and computer-based techniques there is a need for more advanced training. I was pleased to see the increased amount of management training which the board is encouraging, and the number of graduates coming into the industry.

The attitude of the road haulage industry towards training is demonstrated by the way in which it has put under the carpet the proposals of the last Government for a transport manager's licence. Even the Secretary of State for the Environment in Committee on the Transport Bill supported quality licensing, which involves better training facilities for management. The attitude of the road haulage industry has been deplorably demonstrated by the way it has almost successfully talked out of existence proposals for a transport manager's licence. This attitude towards the education and training which is obviously needed for sophisticated management techniques demonstrates the need for the board. I am pleased to say that the Guild of Transport Managers has now put forward proposals for a "closed shop" transport manager's licence. I do not know how the "closed shop" will be affected by the Industrial Relations Bill, but belated proposals are coming forward for a more restricted form of transport manager's licence.

Road haulage is a non-career based industry which is just beginning to realise that it needs more sophisticated management techniques in its training. I believe that this board has been a great impetus in that direction.

I visited the Road Transport Industry Training Board—I went on my own invitation—because I was interested to see how the money, to which the hon. Member for Shipley referred, was being spent. I was particularly impressed by the modern, up-to-date, attitude towards the communications media which the board is showing. I do not know whether hon. Gentlemen opposite realise that this is one of the few training boards which makes its own films, and those plastic cards. It has cassettes, tape recorders, and all the modern communications media for getting down to the grass roots of the industry. Hon. Members may feel that this is a rather expensive way of providing training, but anybody with experience in public relations or the communications media will realise that many people bound up in transport do not have the time to sit down night after night poring over books. Consequently, a far more adequate, thorough, and efficient way of getting through to them is to place the accent on the modern communications media, which I am glad to say that the board is using. I believe that this board has pioneered many of the modern communications techniques to get through to people who otherwise would not have the time to pore over books and study every night.

Hon. Gentlemen opposite have made jokes about petrol pump attendants being trained. I speak as a one who served as a holiday time forecourt operator on the M.5 service area at Frensham, Worcestershire. I can only repeat what I have heard about the number of mistakes made by forecourt operators. They range from putting diesel fuel into petrol tanks, and petrol into diesel-engined vehicles, to putting petrol into the radiator of a Renault motor car. It is surprising what happens when that is done. I did not do that. But I used to clean the windscreens. I was taught to clean the windscreens, because the company employing me believed in training its forecourt operators. Therefore, I served petrol as a trained forecourt operator. I was not trained by the board, of course.

I have heard about many simple mistakes made by forecourt operators—even trained forecourt operators. I am not running them down. On the whole, they give me very good service—especially when they see the House of Commons badge on the windscreen.

As I said, on the whole, petrol pump attendants give good service, but I have heard of deaths even through petrol pump attendants playing around with compressed air hoses. I hope that hon. Gentlemen will not laugh at that. Elementary mistakes can be made with dipsticks, batteries, putting petrol in the wrong hole, and so on. These things happen, and they stem from a complete and utter lack of training.

It would certainly be welcome to me if, every time I want on to a garage forecourt, I could find a petrol pump attendant—call him what one will—who knew where the dipstick was, knew how much the space marked on the dipstick was supposed to represent, and knew the quality and quantity of oil and petrol which my car needed. I often have to tell the attendant those things—[HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"]—I am glad that hon. Gentlemen have cars about which they know the operating performances, tyre pressures, and things like that. But there are a few rather unscientific people in this country who may not know all these details. With the conflicting claims which are made by the oil and petrol manufacturers, I should be more than grateful for a trained forecourt attendant to sort out some of the difficulties. They have been saying that they do not see the need for training in many things. Loading a lorry is an acquired skill.

Mr. Raymond Gower (Barry)

Would the hon. Gentleman agree that some of the most useful people in this industry are those who have been apprenticed in the old-fashioned way to some of the larger firms?

Mr. Huckfield

I accept that, but the difficulty is to find garages which take on apprentices on the old scale. It is my evidence that the attitude of many sectors of the trade towards apprenticeships is getting worse and worse.

The hon. Gentleman talked about splitting some of the functions of this board. Surprisingly enough, I agree with him. I do not agree with the Passenger Vehicle Operators' Association and the Road Haulage Association to the extent that the hon. Gentleman does—unfortunately I did not get their memorandum in the post—but the fact is that this board, however much page 10 of its report may try to disguise it, is using the levy from road haulage and the passenger vehicle operators to subsidise the garage trade. I know that this is controversial in the transport industry, and that even the board uses arguments to show that this is not the case, but there is a great deal of feeling in the road haulage industry and the public service vehicle industry that their levy is being used to subsidise the garage trade.

It seems to me that it would be more sensible—and I again quote the good example of the Wool and Jute Industry Training Board—to split up the activities of this board. It is a comprehensive board, covering all sections of the road transport industry, and I think that if the garage side of the board was looking after its training, the public service vehicle side was looking after its side, and the road haulage side looking after its side, we would have a far more sensible administrative structure.

I am sure that hon. Gentlemen opposite will have agreed with me in the past when I have said that much of the 1968 Transport Act and much of the 1964 Industrial Training Act was necessary because industries like these were not doing any training, and the whole object of the board has been to encourage the spread of training schemes, particularly off the job and elswhere. I disagree with the hon. Gentleman, because in the renewed emphasis which the board has given to training in the whole of the industry, and in the consciousness of the need for training which the board is forcing on the industry, it is doing a good job.

Mr. Ernle Money (Ipswich)

Will the hon. Gentleman deal with the criticism, which many hon. Members have heard from their constituents, that those who are paying most into the board in terms of levy are getting the least out of it in terms of value?

Mr. Huckfield

What the hon. Gentleman fails to realise is what many other critics have failed to recognise. The scheme under which the boards operate was set up by the Conservative Party, and it is the industries themselves which control the activities of these boards. I do not know how many letters the hon. Gentleman has written to his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment, but in reply to complaints that I have made in the past about other training boards—not about this one—I have always received a reply saying that the policy of the board is not a matter for the Secretary of State but for the board itself which comprises representatives from the industry, and if the industry does not like the membership of the board it is up to the industry to do something about it.

Half the trouble is that here is an industry which on the road haulage side, on the public service vehicle side, and on the garage side, has never really decided who ought to represent it. I can only quote the present schism between various associations representing municipal corporation bus fleets, the independent operators and the territorial operators. The bus side is split in its representation. The road haulage side is split between the Road Haulage Association and the Freight Transport Association. Even the garage side tends to be split between the Motor Agents' Association and one or two other groups.

It seems to me that if many of the smaller people are not getting adequate representation in the management and decision-taking of these boards, a lot of the fault for this lies in the industries themselves because they have not decided which will be the associations, which will be the committees, that will represent them.

I end as I began, by saying that I believe in this board. I believe in the fine example of pioneering work done by it. I should not like to see it wound up. I agree that there should be modifications, perhaps along the lines suggested by the hon. Member for Shipley—and for the speech that he made I am grateful. I hope that in his winding-up speech the Minister will state clearly that his party's aim is not to wind up these boards but to make certain modifications. I hope that he will keep in the forefront of his mind not the fact that road hauliers do not attend my lectures but that in future we shall need to see a much more constructive attitude to training on the part of the road transport industry. I hope that we shall get a road transport industry that believes in training, and that we shall have a more managerial-conscious, technically-conscious, more educated and more career structure based road transport industry. From that we shall benefit, and from that the whole economy will benefit.

10.41 p.m.

Sir David Renton (Huntingdonshire)

I am sure that the House would wish me to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Mr. Fox) on a brilliant and well-chosen maiden speech. My hon. Friend exhibited that common sense and good humour that we have come to expect from Yorkshire Members. If he carries on in the future as he has started this evening we shall be proud of his performances on this side of the House.

The Government did not create the situation that we are discussing; they inherited it. They found that negotiations had proceeded pretty far, no doubt under some pressure, before this Order was laid before the House. Our anxiety on this side of the House has been exhibited by the presence of so many of my hon. Friends, who when my hon Friend was speaking outnumbered hon. Members opposite by no less than 10 to 1.

The Government must do something about this situation. My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley and the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Huckfield) referred to this Order as though it applied only to those who work in garages and road haulage and bus companies, but it also applies to agricultural engineers. That is where my constituency interest lies. Agriculture has been going through a very difficult time recently, and is still doing so. The agricultural engineers play a most important part in the industry.

I have corresponded with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment about this scheme ever since last July, when the Order was laid. One of the answers that he gave me was that he wished that employers who have complaints to make against the scheme would complain to their colleagues on the training board. I have a list of the names of the members of the training board. I have been through it with one of my constituents, who has pointed out to me that not one agricultural engineer is on that board. The agricultural engineering side of the industry is not represented on it.

One very interesting point is made in the Order. At the top of page 3 it says, somewhat ironically, The levy shall be assessed by the Board in respect of each employer, not being a charity. In these days employers not only have to pay the training board levy; they have to pay S.E.T., National Insurance contributions, graduated pensions contributions, and redundancy payments. Perhaps that combination of compulsory payments may be at least a contributory factor to the high unemployment that we have today. It means that, before insisting that this fairly large training levy shall be paid by employers in addition to all their other contributions, we have to make sure at least that value for money is being obtained.

These agricultural engineers in my constituency have said that they simply cannot get value for money. There is one in particular, not a very large firm, which does very important work servicing farmers' machinery. It pays the board a levy of approximately £1,000 a year. It has a very good fitter, who has done his craftsman's training, what I believe is sometimes described as "on the job" training, and who could benefit from "off the job training." This man is married. About the only place that he can get the off the job training he requires is a technical college in the West Country, but that means his getting a residential block release course for ten weeks in the spring and ten weeks in the late autumn.

He earns about £20 a week, and, as a married man, one would not expect him to live comfortably on much less, bearing in mind his skill. But if his employers were to send him for training, they would have to pay his full wages for 20 weeks, and after taking into account the grant which they get from the training board, which would only partially cover his wages, subsistence costs and travelling expenses, the company would be out of pocket by about £300—in addition to the £1,000 levy. The House will appreciate that in the present state of farming and the still depressed state of industry, that firm cannot contemplate additional liabilities of that nature.

I would end by quoting from a letter sent to me by the managing director of this firm of agricultural engineers, which is only one out of the many in my constituency who have complained to me about this: There is no need to emphasise that a Conservative Government was elected, among other things, to rid industry of the considerable and largely unnecessary burden placed on its shoulders in various ways by previous legislation and increased by the previous Socialist Government. I must look to you as my Member to do everything possible to reduce the unnecessary burden. He points out that that burden is crushing the industrial life of this country and that that is the main reason for this country's small rate of economic growth.

Even if this is only a contributory factor in our economic difficulties, I say that my right hon. Friends should be seriously considering whether we can go on with this expensive scheme, and whether we should not say that it is not giving good enough value for money to industry, that whatever advantages it can give can probably be provided much better in most cases by employers themselves, by extending the principle of on the job training.

10.49 p.m.

Mr. David Clark (Colne Valley)

I rise with mixed feelings, because I am a great proponent of the Industrial Training Act, which the previous Conservative Government did the nation a great service by introducing in 1963–64. I am also rather sad that it has become the vogue these days for the industrial training boards to become the whipping boys of the nation. It seems that anything the boards do is wrong. Having said that, however, I feel that in this case there is certain justification in raising the matter in the House.

If a training board has caused so much dissatisfaction among its members, it must have gone astray somewhere. Therefore, I applaud some of the things that the hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Fox) said in his maiden speech. That a training board has lost confidence, however, is no reason for abolishing the industrial training scheme, and I hope that when he replies to the debate the Minister will make this clear. The board for the road transport industry has done a great deal of good work. It is probably too early to judge completely how great its value is.

I find myself in a rather amusing situation, because often when I talk to business men and to hon. Members opposite, they tell me that the trouble today is that the Government have interfered too much in business. On the other hand, it is frequently those same people, with a few honourable exceptions, who come running to the Government whenever they are in trouble.

When the industrial training boards were set up, a compromise was entered into and it was agreed that the Government would set up the boards to tackle the problem nationally but that it would be left to industry to decide who would be represented on the boards, so that the training which was implemented would, in theory, have the confidence of the industry, the employers and the trade unions. Here we have a rather sad situation in which, perhaps, the leaders of the industry seem to be out of touch to a certain extent with some of the people in it.

To take the point a stage further, questions of apprenticeship and training have been raised by the hon. Member for Shipley. I am sure that the vast majority of hon. Members opposite would agree that more training is needed. As a nation, we have few natural resources and we depend on the skill, technical ability and managerial ability of our workers.

The Act was introduced because it was found that a few firms were doing all the training. They were spending all the money but others, large and small, were poaching those they had trained. Therefore, the Act was introduced to spread the cost of industrial training throughout the nation. Thus, to argue in terms of apprenticeships is to use a false argument because, in one way, apprenticeship is exactly what the board is trying to provide.

It is essential to keep the board going in the road transport industry because so much of our livelihood depends upon it. We all know of the small garages and the terrible criticism to which garages are subjected. I certainly have my criticism. Garages, however, are changing. When I take my car to the garage to be serviced nowadays, there are probably 130 or 140 cars being serviced on the same day. It is a highly sophisticated operation. I gather that a computer is used to check some of the engines. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh, dear."] Hon. Members may not appreciate this but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Leslie Huckfield) has said, it is not a simple job to service the engine of a modern car. When I get my car back, I get a computer statement telling me what was wrong and what has been done.

This is the future. It is no use thinking in terms of small garages only, because in the large centres of population we will find these large garages, which need highly trained people. The great hiatus in British industry is at management level, in manufacturing, distributive industry and the service industries. I look to the board, in a reformed state, to push ahead with its training and modernisation schemes and especially with its aim to increase its management training facilities. I appeal to the Minister not to abolish, but to reform, this body.

10.55 p.m.

Mr. Paul B. Rose (Manchester, Blackley)

I wish, at the outset, to congratulate the hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Fox) on his maiden speech. He told us how he had failed a heavy vehicle test. Tonight he passed with honours his first test in this House. He made an interesting and constructive speech and, although my hon. Friends may not have agreed with all he said, he supplied us with plenty of food for thought. We look forward to hearing his blunt Yorkshire humour on many occasions, and I say that as a Lancastrian, though we both come from Rugby League country.

It is curious that tonight the Government are faced with a Prayer tabled by their back benchers, though this is not without precedent. We have been told frequently about the Government's pride in paternity in regard to the proposals which were contained in the White Paper, Cmnd. 1892. They were elected to office on 18th June, only seven days after the present Prime Minister said at a meeting at Ayr: Something like 100,000 men and women will need to be trained every year by industry, government and through the educational system. He pledged the Government to an unprecedented programme of training as a central feature of Conservative economic policy". Admittedly he did not claim to do that at a stroke, but the Labour Government had had a remarkably good record in regard to training centres. Indeed, they had achieved the largest expansion in industrial training in our history, and I hope that hon. Gentlemen opposite—I say this in good faith—will continue our policy—[Interruption.]—and will keep the promise which their Leader made at Ayr, despite the dissenting noises that some hon. Gentlemen opposite have been making.

As for the industries with which we are concerned tonight, until July, 1969, there had been an increase of 35,715 in the number of employees undergoing training, though there were no new administrative staff. On the contrary. Because of computerisation, their numbers had reduced from 58 to four. Although I appreciate that the many demands on small businesses create problems in this connection, I am encouraged by the statement in the Annual Report: There is convincing evidence that the haulage sector sees driver training as one of its major responsibilities. While I am aware of the views of certain hon. Members who would like to split up the industry, the evidence on page 10 of the Report and the table on page 11 indicate that the imbalance which has undoubtedly existed is being corrected and that in some respects it operates in favour of those sectors of the industry which are complaining, and that is in regard to the direct training facilities which are being offered by the board.

Be that as it may, there is a case to be considered and when the Labour Party were in office there was being carried out at the D.E.P. a review into the working of the Industrial Training Act because we were aware that in some industries the boards' functions needed to be improved.

There can be few sectors of industry where the need for training is more abundantly clear than in road transport. All the evidence points to this, including the N.E.D.C. Report, the Prices and Incomes Board's Report, the report in Which?, the Daily Mail survey, the Report of the independent consultants appointed by the Motor Agents' Association and the statement made by the Director-General of the Automobile Association.

I have here quite a body of evidence—I cannot deploy all of it because of the time—with regard to what all of us have experienced, including myself during the past week, concerning the way in which our cars are serviced. According to the Which? reports, No garage gave any car a complete service as listed by the manufacturer. Three-quarters missed out important points. Safety was largely disregarded. We had loosened the mountings of one of the safety belts and this was never tightened. Only one in eight garages noticed a very worn tyre"— and I believe there are regulations about that sort of thing. Not one of these noticed a tyre which had been temporarily plugged, and was unsafe for permanent use. Very few garages reported on additional faults, however serious. These reports go into the details, and we are all aware of this sort of complaint.

We learn from the Daily Mail that Every time a motorist takes his car to a garage for service or repairs, the chances are that he will be cheated. He can end up paying for time not worked …". That well-known "Socialist" newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, found that 50 out 51 cars found to have dangerous brakes were checked and the one which came out best was the car which the owner had serviced.

It is in the interests of the industry itself that training should be improved. Otherwise, increasingly drivers will service their own vehicles because it will be the only way in which they can be sure of good service. The industry must be concerned about this trend of "do it yourself" and also about the growing manpower which will be demanded by what is a continually expanding industry. We need a force that is properly trained, and I resent the undertones which seemed to indicate that some hon. Members think that because a petrol pump attendant's job appears to be simple, and because an hon. Member may happen to be a member of a learned profession or in business, the person doing a manual job does not need to be properly trained. I am not referring in particular to the hon. Gentleman who opened the debate, but there is certainly the assumption that people doing a job of work of this kind can just walk into the job and do it. This was exposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Leslie Huckfield).

Mr. Robert Taylor (Croydon, North-West)

When the matter of petrol pump attendants was put by a reporter to the Director-General of the Road Transport Industrial Training Board and he was questioned about the purpose of these courses, he replied … the proprietor of a garage can be concerned in selling a whole range of products. We have all noticed that the garage forecourt is more and more a place where the customer can buy sweets, mineral waters and all manner of things. That appears to be what the Director-General believes is the purpose of the course, and is contrary to what the hon. Gentleman is suggesting.

Mr. Rose

Anyone who has had the experience, as I have, as a non-mechanic, of having trouble with his car, has been grateful to find a petrol pump attendant who has been trained to enable him to be of great service to the customer. There is far more to being a pump attendant than merely putting the nozzle into the tank of a car. The hon. Gentleman is making a very trivial point.

What is significant is that the Report of the N.E.D.O. said: … the Road Transport Industry Training Board is assisting the improvement of training methods and standards. The Report goes on to expand upon this, as hon. Members will see if they care to look at page 18, where it is stated: … motoring manufacturing companies have a role to play in continuing and extending their support to their dealer's workshop and other operations, and the Road Transport Industry Training Board by further improvement of training methods and standards. We are calling for the improvement, and not the scrapping of these boards. An enormous responsibility rests upon the people in this industry, especially drivers of heavy vehicles. It is often this field which attracts people who may not have skills in other fields and who badly need training. It was recently reported that the industry was short of 25,000 heavy goods vehicle drivers. The fact that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Shipley who spoke so well, failed his test shows that training is necessary for this purpose. Moreover, at a time when we have 690,000 unemployed, if there be that shortage, perhaps some industrial training might help to close the gap. Clearly, people with a proper level of skill will not be produced without organised training.

Any organisation which is set up to help the situation—no one suggests for a moment that this one is perfect—is doomed to run into philistine criticism. There are about 60,000 employers within the scope of the Road Transport Industry Training Board, employing between them about 1 million workpeople, and they have a long tradition of letting training look after itself. Many of them do not like to see any change, and they are scarcely prepared for happy co-operation with an organisation which will require of them a certain level of performance, a level which some have not yet achieved, though others, I am glad to say, are well on the way to achieving it.

The board has been criticised in a number of ways tonight, principally on the ground of lack of proper financial control and for having spent large sums of money which belong to the industry, with very little to show for it. In fact, the board has cost the industry little. The problem—this was highlighted by one or two comments from the Government benches is that too much of the money available has been paid back from the levy in the form of training grant. Also, the board has another problem to face in that it is in its early days and it has to make an early impact on a difficult industry to overcome its inertia in the matter of training. In a sense, it had to overspend at first deliberately in order to get the industry started along proper lines with a proper training policy and programme. The total cost of its own administration as shown in the accounts for the year ending 31st March, 1970, was £372,000, which indicates that it was not particularly expensive.

The board has been criticised also for the amount of paper work, a common problem today in all industry. I understand that this affects the smaller employer in particular, and it is a problem worthy of attention. But, while there may be evidence for this complaint, if one is to have a well organised programme certain records must be kept. It may be the price we have to pay for good organisation and training.

Possibly, the most worrying aspect of the debate, and some of the undertones, noises and rumblings made by certain hon. Members opposite from a seated position, is the claim that, because they pay the piper, the employers should call the tune. I am glad to note that some hon. Gentlemen did not share that view. In my opinion, there can be no support here for the concept of majority control by those who run the industry. It must be a partnership, a partnership with trade unionists, with educationists, and even with those who, like by hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Leslie Huck-field), to give lectures.

The employers must realise that the industry is not entirely theirs, that the 1 million people working in road transport are equally part of the industry and equally concerned in it, having their lives and careers bound up with it. They need the kind of structure for advancement in the industry to which my hon. Friend referred. Not least, the general public have a great interest in the efficiency of the industry, for our safety and our lives can often depend upon the training and skill of those who work in it.

It is intolerable that the co-operation which is so necessary risks being destroyed as the result of a selfish attitude on the part of a minority of hon. Members opposite and others outside who represent the kind of employer who wishes to turn the clock back and does not understand the new concept of employer-employee relationships.

We have a farsighted policy, and I hope that the Minister will continue with it, whatever deficiencies may have to be ironed out; and will recognise that tonight we have heard the first shot being fired by those who would like to destroy these training boards, even though the Motion was moved in terms of the need to improve the board mentioned. I therefore hope that the Minister will resist any suggestion that it should be scrapped, though we on this side accept the need for an examination of the manner in which it works.

11.11 p.m.

The Minister of State, Department of Employment (Mr. Paul Bryan)

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Mr. Fox) on his very fine maiden speech. Shipley, as you know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, is an area that I know very we indeed. It was superbly represented in this House for 20 years. I believe that Geoffrey Hirst was one of the very best constituency Members I have ever met. I am confident that Shipley will continue to be represented well for another 20 years, and its present incumbent will certainly be a very great asset to the House.

I congratulate my hon. Friend, too, on introducing this debate. It is clearly a short debate, and held late at night, but I feel that we needed an opportunity to have at least some debate at an early stage, because people are very concerned about the subject. The hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Rose) has said that the benches on this side are filled with people who wish to turn the clock back, but the truth is that those Members are very concerned at what is going on, and want to see an improvement in the training system.

Although this debate is concerned with the Industrial Training Levy (Road Transport) Order, and therefore with the Road Transport Industry Training Board a number of the points that have been raised have had a much wider import, and this evening we have touched on almost all the well known worries of the other boards as well. We have heard about the quality of training, with which my hon. Friend was concerned, and one constantly comes across doubt about the extent to which the training boards are producing the type of training right across the range of firms with which they are dealing, which is a very difficult matter when one has so many industries coming under one training board, and such a large number and variety of firms.

Tonight we have had reference to the financial control problems in other training boards, often arising because the boards have, shall I say, been trapped by the snare of the open-ended grant. The good side is that the boards have pressed for more training and finance for training, but from the financial angle it can only be a snare.

We have heard about the boards' relationship with individual firms and industry, and one is disappointed by the difficulty in communication there seems to be between firms and their boards. That is why many of them turn to us, their Members of Parliament, when, if the communications were working, those firms should be going to the boards which are concerned with their own industry.

We have heard about the effects of the changes in the boards' levy grant scheme. The other night I was talking to a group of employers, one of whom referred to the "lottery" of the whole affair, and quoted to me the amounts of money he paid in levy vis- à-vis the number of people he employed. One realises that changes which are made at headquarters and which may seem to be quite sensible—and probably they are, because they are to right a wrong—when they are reflected in the firm, can look quite mad. Although we are debating a very narrow subject, it is worth remembering that these are wide-scale worries which we, as Members, have met in the past.

Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles (Winchester)

My hon. Friend has mentioned a lottery, but some groups coming under the R.T.I.T.B. feel that it is a lottery which they cannot possibly win, because they are paying a levy for training which that board is unable to provide for their group. One such group is the Agricultural Machinery and Tractor Dealers Association. Would my hon. Friend look at that point?

Mr. Bryan

I certainly shall. I have not got that covered in my speech, which has only 15 more minutes to run.

I think that the general situation certainly justified the Government's decision to undertake a review. My right hon. Friend has announced this, and it is now in train. It will be widely accepted that that was a sensible decision.

In the review we are taking full account of the views and criticisms expressed both here tonight and elsewhere as evidence for our review. Tonight's debate will add to this material. We shall be covering these questions in our proposals, which we expect to issue before the parliamentary year is through.

We are pressing ahead with the review as fast as we can because clearly people are very anxious to know what will happen, both in the boards and the firms covered with them. Industrial training is too big and important a subject for decisions on it to be taken very quickly. We must think very carefully of the long-term first before we decide what is to be done in the medium-term, so I shall not promise that we shall have our solutions out in a few weeks' time, as soon as the review is completed. We shall keep our promise in the Queen's Speech, and before the Session is through we shall announce our policy on the subject.

I think that the greatest worry about the Road Transport Industry Training Board, as has been brought out clearly in tonight's debate, has been how the levy arrangements and the associated grant schemes should be regulated so that the three main sectors, road haulage, passenger transport and motor vehicle repair, can be treated equitably. Throughout its existence the board's levy has been at a single rate payable by all sectors. The out-turn of the board's first levy and grant scheme resulted in the motor vehicle sector receiving more in grants than it paid in levy; the road haulage sector receiving less in grants than it paid in levy; and the passenger transport sector breaking about even.

From the outset there has been pressure from the industry for different levy rates for each sector. The Board had not built up sufficient data to consider this fully until 1969, and when it did so it considered that the position would become balanced by 1973.

However, as there was inequality arising from differences in size of firms it introduced a sliding scale of levy under which smaller firms paid at a reduced rate. It also applied a limit to the total amount of grant an individual firm could receive.

When the board considered what proposals to make for the 1970 levy and the associated grant scheme it had to take account of a deterioration in its own financial position. It saw no prospect of reducing its levy income, and to introduce different rates of levy at that stage would have entailed an unacceptable increase in the levy rate for the motor vehicle repair section. It did, however, propose changes in its grant scheme, the principal one being the introduction of what is called a block grant, which was at the rate of 25 per cent of levy paid. This replaced the payment of grants at a daily rate for on-the-job training, and was paid to firms showing a satisfactory standard in their general training arrangements.

Other changes were made to bring grants for different sectors more closely into line with each other, and to curtail total expenditure. With these changes the Board considered that the return to the three sectors would be in better balance when the grants and training services were compared with the levy. They have now pretty well evened up, but I will not give the exact figures.

My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley suggested that it would be far better if we might have three mini-Boards, so that each sector of the industry had control over its own training needs and so on. This is not possible under the Act if, by it, one means that they would also be in charge of their own levy. Provision exists in the Act for committees to exercise some of the board's powers, but it cannot delegate to such committees its power to impose a levy in accordance with an Order made by the Secretary of State. The sub-boards suggested would therefore not be able to control finance from the centre as the law stands.

When we took office, the situation we inherited was that all three sectors were entirely dissatisfied with the Board's 1970 levy proposals and made representation to the Department. The main criticisms concerned the inequity of the proposed levy and grant schemes, the board's organisation, and the lack of adequate consultation with the industry by the board before taking its decision. So matters were such at this stage that the levy was necessary to continue the board's operations. The levy and the grant proposals represented an improvement in that the ratio between the levy paid and the grants and training services received by the three sectors were likely to be more equal. There was the prospect also of continued improvement in the future by the development of the "block grant" idea. The grant scheme was therefore approved and the levy order was made. That is the story of the levy so far as we were concerned.

Mr. Leslie Huckfield

Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that there is a precedent for separate administration for the three sectors set by the Wool and Jute Industry Training Board?

Mr. Bryan

I cannot answer that at once. It is one of the boards I have yet to study but I should be surprised if it could go against the law on the basis I have described. But I will look into it.

My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton) raised a point about representation on the board and the rôle of its members. In the Act, one of the main points of the organisation set up was that the boards should be independent and autonomous, and just about the only control which the Government had over them was the authorisation or approval of the yearly levy. This seemed the right way because one felt, as I have said, that if the boards were composed of members of the industry one would get the close communication that one hoped for.

In fact, this appears to be happening less and less, but I think that the representation in numbers has been correct up to very recently. On this board there are nine members from the employers, nine trade unionists, eight educationists and the chairman. When it comes to the levy or anything to do with finance, the voting is only by the trade unionists and the employers. The education members have no vote.

Sir D. Renton

My hon. Friend has missed the point. My point was that the agricultural engineering industry is not represented on the board.

Mr. Bryan

I was coming to that point. I am conscious of that fact, and it is probably because the agricultural engineering industry joined fairly lately. One would hope to put that right as time goes on. I think that the representation is right but it would appear also that the communication is not as good as it might be.

Now I turn to the board's financial position. It is clear that one of its priorities should be the correction of its financial deficit. Its early grant schemes were largely open-ended. Although they have had the desired effect of stimulating training, consequent claims for grants have caused expenditure to exceed income.

The board is already bringing expenditure under control. The block grant introduced last year serves to limit grant expenditure by relating part of it to the amount of a firm's levy. The board has strengthened its methods of budgetary control and has scaled down future capital expenditure particularly on its own training centres. Present indications are that expenditure is being contained, and in the proposals for its next scheme further action is envisaged to strengthen control over grant expenditure and to reduce the deficit.

In a debate like this, clearly we are mostly here because we are worried about faults in the system. We are here in a critical mood and one is apt to overlook the plus points. One must, however, give credit for what the board has achieved. It has achieved a good deal in group training schemes and over a hundred of these have been founded to enable firms which are too small to employ their own specialist training staff to share the services of a training officer.

Its first training centre—M.O.T.E.C.—is operating successfully and most courses there are heavily subscribed. A second centre is now being established. Arguments are heard for and against the development of these centres but it will be found that the board's judgment was right.

The attitude we must take in our judgment is to study both the plusses and minuses and to realise that a lot has been achieved. The question for discussion now is whether we are paying far too high a price for that achievement and whether we cannot improve the quality of training, get rid of some of the administrative costs, get rid of some of the paper and have something of credit to British industrial training.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved, That this House takes note of the Industrial Training Levy (Road Transport) Order 1970 (S.I., 1970, No. 1062).