Youth Training Scheme (Hansard, 7 June 1988)

§ 5. Mr. Cohen
To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many young people who are in employment are participating in the youth training scheme.

§ Mr. Cope
At the end of March 1988, there were 61,603.

§ Mr. Cohen
Was not the youth training scheme orginally supposed to be part of a package of work training for all youngsters, but of those 16 to 18-year-olds in employment very few are on the YTS or obtaining proper training, while many others cannot afford to be on the YTS because of the poverty pay under that scheme? Young people are receiving next to no training whether or not they are on the scheme. Is it not the case that the Government are putting very little into the training of our youngsters?

§ Mr. Cope
Oh no, we are putting a great deal into that. A total of 381,000 young people are on the YTS, and that is a lot. Of course, we should like more and we want it to be a normal route between school and work for young people.

§ Mr. Bill Walker
When considering the youth training programme, will my hon. Friend bear in mind that in Scotland many new jobs are emerging in leisure, recreation and tourism? We welcome the fact that, because of the strength of the economy, many English people can spend so much of their time on vacation in Scotland where the quality of life is so much better. Will he bear in mind that we must have more training schemes in leisure, recreation and tourism activities?

§ Mr. Cope
Yes, indeed. That is one of the expanding areas in this scheme, as in others.

§ Mr. Sheerman
Does the Minister agree that until recently he and his colleagues were boasting and bragging about the fact that the school leaving age had been raised to 18? Is it not a sad fact that youth training has largely become a programme for unemployed youngsters? Even worse than that, is he not worried that up and down the country young people are now opting to go into low-paid, dead end jobs with no training at all? Is that the way in which he envisages our work force competing with other countries in the years to come? Should not employers be forced to provide a basic minimum level of training for young people between the ages of 16 and 18?

§ Mr. Cope
I do not think that employers should be forced, but we want to encourage them and that is exactly what the YTS has done. That is why it has expanded over the years and why it is making a major contribution. I agree that we want as many young people as possible—if possible, all young people—to go into jobs in which they are supplied with proper training, leading, as YTS increasingly does, to qualifications which will at least set them on the right road for life.