Employment Training (Hansard, 18 July 1989)

§ 2. Mr. Janner
To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what representations he has received concerning the eligibility requirements for employment training.

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Patrick Nicholls)
Representations are received from time to time. The eligibility conditions for employment training are sufficiently widely drawn to help those who are most disadvantaged in the labour market.

§ Mr. Janner
Is it correct that the Department of Employment has given instructions to employment service managers that the number of people to be admitted to or referred for employment training must be increased by 50 per cent? If that is true, does it not mean that people will be put on employment training who are totally unsuitable for it and that this is yet another of the Government's efforts to fiddle the unemployment figures?

§ Mr. Nicholls
No, the employment training programme is the most successful programme so far to train the adult unemployed to get themselves back into the world of work. The programme is supported by a great number of 206 Labour-controlled authorities. There is no question of its being compulsory or of trying to force people to train. The Government are anxious that anyone who has it in him to benefit from the sort of training available should do so.

§ Mr. Simon Coombs
Does my hon. Friend recognise that in some parts of the country the number of people available for employment training is diminishing rapidly? Will he therefore examine carefully the need for a flexible policy to ensure that the additional cost per head is allowed for in Government budgeting for the future of the scheme?

§ Mr. Nicholls
My hon. Friend is entirely right to draw attention to the consequences for employment training of the declining unemployment rate. He may have wondered why the hon. and learned Member for Leicester, West (Mr. Janner) did not remind the House that the percentage fall in unemployment in his constituency for the year ending June 1989 was 19.2 per cent. We accept that funding arrangements have to be kept under review.