HC Deb 27 May 1971 vol 818 cc551-2
2. Mr. Robert Taylor

asked the Secretary of State for Employment what reply he has given to the application from the National Federation of Builders' and Plumbers' Merchants for their members to be transferred from the Construction Industry Training Board to the Distributive Industry Training Board as contained in their letter to him dated 8th April, 1971.

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

I wrote to the Federation on 27th April to say that I wished to defer a decision until the completion of my right hon. Friend's review of industrial training.

Mr. Taylor

Is my hon. Friend aware that what this important National Federation urgently seeks is not a transfer from one industrial training board to another but a return to the voluntary system of training which existed before the implementation of the 1964 Act, because it seriously believes that the implementation of the Act in the service industries has been counter-productive?

Mr. Bryan

The Federation has not expressed this view to us.

Mr. C. Pannell

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that I had to consider the implications of the 1964 Act when I became Minister of Public Building and Works and that, even before there was any experience of it, we had this belly-aching from the construction industry? Would he consider publishing a White Paper about the history of this matter? I notice that, with the change of Government, all hon. Members are being pressurised about the Construction Industry Training Board, and that people are inventing ex- cuses for transferring to the Distribution Industry Training Board. There is nothing very much in this, because the building and construction industry was threatened with being woefully short of apprentices.

Mr. Bryan

We are conducting a very wide review of my Department's manpower services, including industrial training boards. The results will be published in the autumn.

Mr. Costain

Is my hon. Friend aware that the objections of the so-called dissent in the building industry to the training board are because the right hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) did something as Minister of Works which led the board into serious debt? Has not that proved that the industry is probably better capable of dealing with its own training without Government interference? When will the report be published?

Mr. Bryan

In the autumn, as said in answer to the right hon. Gentleman. The rest of my hon. Friend's supplementary question is a little wide of the mark