Training (Hansard, 11 December 1990)

§ 11. Mr. Moate
To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what is his latest estimate of current total expenditure by the Government on training; and what were the comparable figures for 1979.

§ Mr. Howard
In the financial year 1978–79—the last complete year under the Labour Government—total Government expenditure on training was £377.3 million. Our planned expenditure in the current financial year is £2,704.5 million—well over two and a half times in real terms what the last Labour Government spent.

§ Mr. Moate
Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that not only has there been a dramatic increase in spending on training by the Government, but back in 1979 there was no youth training guarantee for school leavers, or guarantee of training for the long-term unemployed, and we did not have training and enterprise councils 807 coming on stream? Can my right hon. and learned Friend suggest any reason why anyone should listen to the Opposition when they failed the country so miserably?

§ Mr. Howard
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and has identified three of the most telling reasons why this Government have made more advances in training than have ever been seen before in this country.

§ Mr. Worthington
Why has no money been spent on training this year through the European social fund? The European year will run out in about a fortnight, but no decisions have yet been made on training schemes which should have started last January. Why have Scottish voluntary organisations such as Goodwill and the Scottish Association for Mental Health not yet been informed of European training funding which should have started in January?

§ Mr. Howard
The hon. Gentleman is entirely wrong. We are making some payments from the European social fund and certain of them relate to training. As I suspect the hon. Gentleman knows, payments were not made earlier because the money was not forthcoming from the fund until very late in the year and because the vast majority of the applications that we received were incorrectly completed and had to be returned to the applicants to be put into the correct form. As soon as we receive those applications in the correct form, payments will be made.

§ Mr. Paice
Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that, in addition to the tremendous improvement in training expenditure by the Government, industry itself has responded positively to the greater control and power over training expenditure that my right hon. and learned Friend and his predecessors have permitted?

§ Mr. Howard
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Industry is responding both in the amount of money that it is devoting to training, with current expenditure of about £20 billion per year, and in its unprecedented response to the training and enterprise councils initiative introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler). Twelve hundred business leaders throughout the country are joining the Government in an unprecedented partnership to revolutionise training attitudes.

§ Mr. McLeish
It is nearly a year since the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) was appointed Secretary of State for Employment. Why is £2 million per week being cut from the training budget, employment rising by 4,000 per week, and voluntary sector organisations throughout the country going out of business because of the Department's incompetence? Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman accept that the country has no confidence in his ability to deliver any skills revolution?

§ Mr. Howard
The skills revolution is under way—it is taking place. We are revolutionising attitudes to training both of individuals and of employers. The training and enterprise councils are encouraging employers all over the country, in the unprecedented partnership that I mentioned a few moments ago, to take their responsibili-ties much more seriously. We are in the van of some of the most far-seeing training initiatives to be found anywhere in the world.

§ Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman
On a point of order Mr. Speaker.

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. It will take up time.

§ Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman
In view of your recent ruling on the tabling of questions, Mr. Speaker, is it in order for a member of the Labour Front Bench to circulate questions to be asked by other hon. Members?

§ Mr. Speaker
I believe that that practice is occasionally common to both sides of the House.

§ Mr. David Martin
In addition to paying tribute to employers for the role that they are playing, will my right hon. and learned Friend confirm that there will be no going back to the policies of compulsion and direction that were evident in the years before 1979, which were so counter-productive and which the Government rightly reversed subsequently?

§ Mr. Howard
I agree with my hon. Friend that it is typical of the Opposition to want to take us back to policies that failed in the past, the failure of which our present policies are designed to remedy.