Employment Training

HC Deb 01 February 1989 vol 146 cc287-8

9. Mr. Hind

To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what is the current situation regarding the implementation of employment training in Scotland.

Mr. Lang

I am glad to say that employment training is now progressing well. There is no shortage of employers willing to participate and the latest figures show that almost 16,000 people have entered the new programme.

Mr. Hind

No doubt my hon. Friend will have noted that since January 1987 unemployment in Scotland has fallen by 80,000. Does he agree that local authorities in Scotland and the Scottish TUC, in turning their backs on the unemployed and not participating in the employment training programme, are ensuring that many of them will not have the opportunity to fill the 20,000 vacancies that currently exist in Scotland?

Mr. Lang

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The failure of the STUC and COSLA actively to support the employment training scheme has led to a widening of the differential in unemployment figures between Scotland and England. Although COSLA is modifying its attitude to some extent, if the STUC persists in its view it will become increasingly uninfluential and irrelevant to the economic scene in Scotland.

Dr. Godman

In regard to the fusion of employment training and enterprise creation under the umbrella of Scottish Enterprise, I remind the Minister of the dreadfully high unemployment figures in Greenock and Port Glasgow. The present situation at the Ferguson yard in Port Glasgow is causing very deep concern. Will he urge on his ministerial colleagues at the Department of Trade and Industry the urgent necessity to welcome further offers for the acquisition of the yard? Does he agree that the offer from Ailsa Perth of Troon was pitifully inadequate and therefore was understandably rejected by the entire work force?

Mr. Lang

I am glad that unemployment is falling in Greenock and Port Glasgow and has done so in the past two years, as it has elsewhere in Scotland. However, I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the figures remain far too high. The area has particular economic difficulties and that is why we are setting up an enterprise zone in that area. I believe that the fusion of the Training Agency with the activities of the Scottish Development Agency will lead to an improvement in the way in which we are able to respond to such matters. As to his reference to the bid for the Ferguson yard, while negotiations are taking place it would be inappropriate for me to comment on them.

Mr. McLeish

Is the Minister aware that out of a planned provision of 41,000 places in Scotland, his Government have managed to fill only 12,000 places? Does he regard the shortfall of 30,000 places as a success or, as we would describe it, as a classic failure? Will the Minister acknowledge that the responsibility lies fairly and squarely with the Government? Will he give the House an assurance that he will arrange an early meeting with the STUC, COSLA and the voluntary sector to put together a package to help the 100,000 unemployed, instead of displaying complacency at the Dispatch Box on every occasion?

Mr. Lang

I had a meeting with the STUC general council only last Friday at which it did not seek to raise that matter. As for the hon. Gentleman's figures, there is high demand for places on the employment training scheme which has been doing well since it started. Like all new schemes, of course it will take time to get going, but almost 16,000 people have entered the new programme since its inception—hat is not the figure that the hon. Gentleman gave the House. If the STUC would co-operate and support the scheme, which is of crucial importance in preparing people for the 20,000 job vacancies mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Lancashire, West (Mr. Hind) and for the fact that some 700,000 jobs turn over in the Scottish economy every year, the scheme would work much more successfully.

Mr. Neil Hamilton

Does my hon. Friend agree that the protestations of Opposition Members about unemployment ring rather hollow, considering that they will at no stage assist in valuable measures such as the employment training programme which are designed to put people back into work and to remove the unemployment problems about which those Members claim to be so concerned?

Mr. Lang

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is very encouraging that unemployment has been falling steadily in Scotland over the past two years. That, of course, is a phenomenon with which no Labour Government have ever been familiar.