Employment Training (Hansard, 6 June 1990)

§ 13. Mr. McLeish
To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will give the estimated total number of employment training entrants in 1990–91.

§ Mr. Lang
Resources available for employment training in Scotland in 1990–91 have been based on an estimate of an average of 28,500 people in training at any one time. Over 55,000 entered employment training in 1989–90.

§ Mr. McLeish
Why is Scotland suffering such savage cuts in its training budget? Will the Minister confirm that £30 million has been cut from the youth training budget for the next two years? Has he had time to assess the impact of yesterday's announcement of 400 redundancies by Astra Training Services Ltd? That will impact on Scottish skill centres.

§ Mr. Lang
We do not need lectures from the Labour party on cutting training programmes. We are spending about six times as much in cash terms on training as did the Labour Government in their last year. We spend a higher proportion of our gross domestic product on training than do the United States, Germany or Japan. In the past four years, expenditure on training has risen by 60 per cent. at a time when unemployment has fallen by 50 per cent. Of course, it makes sense to adjust our training programmes and budgets to take account of falling unemployment and a reduced client group for those programmes. That is the right way to manage the programmes.

§ Mr. Worthington
During the past few months, the Minister has been in the unfortunate position of having to announce cuts imposed by the Department of Employment on employment training, the technical and vocational education initiative, youth training and the European social fund. The Minister has claimed that next year the Scottish Office will be in control of training. Is that true? Next year, will we be able to control those factors from within Scotland, or will we continue to have Department of Employment cock-ups?

§ Mr. Lang
Last year, the average number of people in employment training schemes was 26,000. For 1990–91 we are budgeting for an estimated 28,500, which is an increase in employment training. The training schemes are increasingly successful, to the embarrassment and discomfort of the Labour party, which has tried to undermine and oppose them.
As to the control of training policies, the hon. Gentleman knows that by merging the Training Agency with the SDA to create Scottish Enterprise and devolving control of the policies in detail to the local enterprise companies, we shall achieve the kind of flexibility and diversity within the overall training programme on a United Kingdom basis that will lead to better training and better job opportunities throughout Scotland.