Enterprise Allowance Scheme (Hansard, 3 December 1985)

§ 10. Mr. Neil Hamilton
asked the Paymaster General what training is available for the self-employed on the enterprise allowance scheme.

§ Mr. Trippier
Both private and public sector training, including the full range of the Manpower Services Commission's training provision, is available. The latter includes free study workshops designed for people considering self-employment and free courses for one-person businesses, small businesses and businesses with real growth potential.

§ Mr. Hamilton
I welcome the recently announced increase in the places available on this scheme and the reduction in the qualifying period. Can my hon. Friend estimate how many jobs have been created by the scheme, and will he say what proposals he has to improve training on it?

§ Mr. Trippier
The number of jobs that have been created as a result of the enterprise allowance scheme has been calculated at the rate of 100 businesses set up under the EAS creating about 99 additional jobs. The trick is to try to graft the training for which the Department of Employment is responsible through the MSC on to the enterprise allowance scheme applicants in such a way as to increase their awareness of their limitations in management expertise and marketing financial control. I am considering the matter and hope to make an announcement soon.

§ Mr. Skinner
What have all the enterprise allowance schemes, enterprise agencies, enterprise zones and small business clubs to do with the glorious success of monetarism and the market place that we were promised in 1979? Is the Minister aware that in my constituency it has been said that all this Government intervention is little more than an extension of post-war funk?

§ Mr. Trippier
On this, as on so many subjects, the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) suffers from delusions of adequacy. Free market forces have a great deal to do with the local enterprise agencies that have been set up while this Government have been in office, principally because we have realised that the private sector—

§ Mr. Skinner
It has collapsed.

§ Mr. Trippier
No, it has not. The private sector has taken the initiative in supporting communities by backing enterprise agencies and thus providing new jobs. That is what the Government are about—providing new jobs through enterprise and free market forces.