Employment Training (Hansard, 18 July 1989)

§ 8. Ms. Ruddock
To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what information he has about the number of employment training placements in the Greater London region.

§ Mr. Nicholls
We estimate that more than 12,100 people on employment training in the London region are on placements with employers or projects on any one day.

§ Ms. Ruddock
Is the Minister aware that his figures conceal the fact that there has been a cut in places which greatly exceeds the cut in the level of unemployment in Greater London. Is he trying to run down the Deptford skill centre? If not, how does he explain the fact that the number of students on the plumbing course has gone down from nine to four, that no tool kits are provided and that there is no instructor? Could it possibly be because the skill centre is based on prime development land? Does this not 211 make a complete nonsense of the £14 billion employment training advertising campaign that the Government are promoting?

§ Mr. Nicholls
No, it does not. If the hon. Lady looked at the success of employment training, she would see that it has been very substantial. That success is apparently shared in by her London borough, because at the time of the original contracting for places to provide employment training, her local Labour-controlled authority expressed an interest in the scheme. It is quite obvious that, when the unemployment figures are falling, there may be a reduction in training places. The point is that this scheme provides places for those who want to be trained. That is something in which the hon. Lady should take delight and not denigrate.

§ Mr. Ian Bruce
Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government have got their figures wrong in terms of employment training simply because, in their wildest dreams, they could not have expected unemployment to come down as quickly as it has? Will he confirm that many private employers are now providing a great deal more training as an incentive for people to join their companies, and that this is to be welcomed—indeed, it should be welcomed by both sides of the House?

§ Mr. Nicholls
My hon. Friend is exactly right. We never predicted the extent to which the unemployment figures would fall. The fall has been even larger than the Labour party said it would achieve with policies that have failed in the past. The important thing about the programme is that it is working and that it has the increasing commitment of the employer community. It has shown that it can get unemployed people back to work, and it has the support of local authorities throughout the country, many of them Labour controlled. The only place where the scheme is constantly denigrated is in the House, by Opposition Members.

§ Mr. Tony Lloyd
The whole House will have noted that the Under-Secretary of State has totally failed to answer the original supplementary question. Let me repeat it for his benefit. Will he comment on the quality of a scheme where trainees are supposedly on a plumbing course but there is no instructor and no tool kit? Is this not typical of employment training? Why does he not respond to that? Secondly, will he respond to the question about whether the Government intend to run down the Deptford skill centre—the number of instructors at the end of August will be two thirds what it is now—because, as planning permission has already been granted on that site, it is worth far more as a piece of real estate than it is as a place for skills training?

§ Mr. Nicholls
It should be obvious from everything that I have said that the Government are totally committed to having a training programme which is of a proper quality. If the hon. Gentleman has a particular case where he believes that those high standards of training have fallen down, there is no reason why he cannot bring it to my, or my right hon. Friend's attention, and we will look at it. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman tries to pretend, by coming to the Dispatch Box with case details which we do not have, that that says something about the quality of the programme, but all it does is say something about the quality of Labour's opposition to the employment figures coming down.