§ 12. Mr. Wigleyasked the Secretary of State for Wales what is the latest figure for the number of young people who left school in Wales in summer 1984; and how many of these have so far found employment.
§ Mr. John Stradling ThomasDetailed information is not available. However, in respect of 16-year-olds eligible to leave school this year, 76 per cent. in that category have continued in full-time education or in some form of training.
§ Mr. WigleyDoes the Minister not realise that people believe that those figures are not available because the Government deliberately want to hide them, as they are so embarrassing? Does he further realise that, of the increase of 14,000 unemployed people in Wales in the month of September, almost 7,000 were school leavers, and that, with 12,000 school leavers under the age of 18 unemployed in Wales, the level of school leaver unemployment there is 50 per cent. higher than the United Kingdom average? When will the Government start doing something about that?
§ Mr. Stradling ThomasThe hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) must be aware that the reason why figures are not available is that although a good deal of information is collected, it is a complex and time-consuming task to produce and flows from several different sources. The effect of a decision by any individual school student about his future takes time to feed through and, even now, many will not have taken final decisions or implemented them. Therefore, to jump off in a half-baked way on incomplete figures shows the superficiality of the approach by Opposition Members.