HC Deb 03 May 1988 vol 132 cc717-9
12. Mr. Jacques Arnold

To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many representations he has received on his plans for the new adult training programme; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Norman Fowler

I have received a large number of representations about the employment training programme. The programme will go ahead in September on the basis of the unanimous recommendations of the Manpower Services Commission. It will have a budget of nearly £1.5 billion and be able to provide training for up to 600,000 unemployed people each year.

Mr. Arnold

Will my right hon. Friend join me in deploring the decision by many unions not to co-operate with the training schemes and, in some cases, to obstruct them? Does he agree with a Transport and General Workers Union branch secretary who has written to say: We cannot just say we are going to wash our hands"——

Mr. Speaker

Order. No quotations, please. It should be paraphrased.

Mr. Fowler

This programme was proposed unanimously by the Manpower Services Commission, on which are three trade union commissioners, including Ron Todd. I hope that in the light of that the trade unions will back this programme, because they have been part of the authorship of it.

Mr. Leyton

Will the Secretary of State consider carefully two of the recommendations that he will have had? Under existing programmes employers can chop up the low training allowance, whereas under the new programme anything over £5 is clawed back by the DHSS. Surely that is perverse and unhelpful, and could he alter it? Secondly, the child care allowance is in itself welcome, but the right hon. Gentleman will know that it is available only for those who can claim unemployment pay for six months, and that means that they have to be available for work. There is a Catch 22 situation. Could he not make the allowance available to all parents who wish to go on the scheme?

Mr. Fowler

I shall look at any of the details of the programme and seek to be as helpful as we conceivably can. I hope that in return the hon. Gentleman, with his long experience of employment matters, will back the major programme that we are putting forward, which will provide training for 600,000 unemployed persons. It would be a great tragedy if he and the trade unions turned their backs on that prospect.

Mr. Holt

Given the success of the training schemes, what proposals do the Government have, particularly in the light of the success of the television advertising of job vacancies in the north of England, at my request—that is the good thing—for assisting with the re-location of people who, having undergone training and acquired new skills, can find no jobs in the locality and wish to go to other parts of the country?

Mr. Fowler

We shall consider that, but the major issue here is that there are many vacancies in the regions, as shown by the vacancies statistics. Someone does not have to travel from north to south to find a job. The vacancies are often there in the region, provided that people have the skills to fill them. The whole point of the employment training programme is to provide skills for unemployed people.

Ms. Short

Has the Secretary of State received representations on the new adult training scheme—or ET, as we are now told to call it—from Windsor, Kensington and Chelsea, Maidenhead and Fylde, which are all Tory local authorities which have decided to boycott the scheme because, they say, it is so under-funded?

Mr. Fowler

I have noted those councils, and if that is the case I hope that they will reconsider their position. What is needed is that people, and particularly the hon. Lady, should stop seeking to sabotage a training programme whose major purpose is to bring unemployed people back into employment.

Mr. Favell

Has my right hon. Friend read recent press speculation that the TUC might seek to destroy the new training scheme? Can it really be that the TUC would show such callous disregard for 600,000 long-term unemployed people?

Mr. Fowler

I agree with my hon. Friend. It cannot be stated too often that the proposals which the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms. Short) is seeking to sabotage are the product of the Manpower Services Commission, on which there are three trade union commissioners, led by Ron Todd. That being so, I very much hope that not only the TUC, but the Labour party, too, will reconsider their destructive attitude.