HC Deb 11 February 1992 vol 203 cc784-5
7. Miss Lestor

To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will state the number of youth training scheme places available in Eccles.

Mr. Jackson

Management of youth training in Eccles is the responsibility of the Manchester training and enterprise council. In the current year, the training and enterprise council has a youth training budget of £16.1 million, and about 7,430 young people are currently in training.

Miss Lestor

Will the Minister cast his mind back to the letter that he wrote to me last October—a soothing reply to the representations that I had made to him—pointing out that the Salford careers service, which covers my constituency, had forecast a shortfall of between 400 and 450 YTS places? As I say, his reply was most soothing. May I inform him, as he has not answered my question, that the same careers service says that nothing has changed and that the same number of young people will not get YTS places, that many of them are fed up with turning up, only to be told that nothing is available and that the continued recession and closures mean that hundreds of them will have nothing to do?

Mr. Jackson

We followed up the representations that were made by the hon. Lady and by others on that point, and the regional offices of the Department of Employment have been in negotiation with TECs to try to establish the extent to which they need additional resources to meet the YT guarantee. That has taken place throughout the country and has led to substantial additional resources being provided. I shall be happy to reconsider the position in Manchester and Eccles, although I know that it is being carefully considered.

There is an issue, which the hon. Lady must recognise, involving the careers service figures. There has been a great national exercise, co-ordinated by the careers service nationally and by my Department, to establish the true position. It is accepted by the careers service that the figures are rather crude, that they consist of people who register an interest in YT and that there are various problems about counting those people as actual demands for YT places.