HC Deb 15 February 1994 vol 237 cc789-90
1. Mrs. Gillan

To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what assessment he has made of spending by industry on training in each of the last five years.

The Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. David Hunt)

We estimate that British employers spend about £20,000 million a year on training. The last recorded figure in 1987 was £18,000 million.

Mrs. Gillan

I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. Does he agree that one of the major contributing factors to our rapid recovery from recession in advance of all the other European Community countries is that British industry has continued to maintain its investment in training?

Mr. Hunt

I agree with my hon. Friend. One of the many satisfactory features of the CBI survey last week was that 84 per cent. of firms in the United Kingdom intend to increase or maintain their spending on training. My hon. Friend is absolutely right—those firms will benefit most from that investment in training as we continue through recovery into growth in the longer term.

Mr. Barry Jones

The right hon. Gentleman will know that there are no large apprenticeship schools in aerospace, steel and textiles, although, in his ministerial capacity, he may remember the existence of such schools. What action is he taking specifically to ensure the provision of apprenticeship schools? We have too many press releases from the right hon. Gentleman and not enough action.

Mr. Hunt

All that I will say is that the hon. Gentleman will have noted that the Chancellor of the Exchequer used his Budget statement on 30 November 1992 to announce that we shall be introducing a modern apprenticeship scheme, which will be available for school leavers next year. In the Department of Employment budget, the Chancellor has allocated more than £1 billion for training credits and the new modern apprenticeship scheme. I hope that industry will respond by coming forward, especially this year, with trail-blazing apprenticeship schemes that will ensure that we have the most relevant structures in place for those modern apprenticeships next year.

Mr. Heald

Will my right hon. Friend pay tribute to the work of the training and enterprise councils in helping women who want to get back to work by providing child care facilities? Can he comment on the Threshold scheme in Northampton, which he visited last week, which is an example of partnership between the public sector, the private sector and training and enterprise councils to promote this sort of work?

Mr. Hunt

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Indeed, I pay tribute to more than 1,200 top business and community leaders who serve on 82 training and enterprise councils and who do a tremendous amount of work on equal opportunities. My hon. Friend is right to earmark them. The child care initiative, launched by my predecessor and involving expenditure of more than £40 million over the period, gives training and enterprise councils opportunity to come forward with some imaginative and innovative schemes. The scheme that I saw in Northampton is extremely impressive and is founded, as my hon. Friend said, on positive partnership.

Mr. Tony Lloyd

What will shift the Secretary of State from his mood of complacency? Between 1990 and 1992, more than 1 million skilled workers were put out of work, nearly 500,000 semi-skilled workers lost their jobs, the number of people trained in industry dropped by 300,000 and the Secretary of State tells us that that is a success. This is not the Opposition talking the country down—it is the Government doing the country down.

Mr. Hunt

I am sorry that the Opposition are continuing to talk the country down. We have an impressive record on competitiveness. In manufacturing, where there has been a decline in employment since the 1960s, 4 million workers now produce more than 7 million produced 15 years ago. That is a tribute to the British work force. The hon. Gentleman must not forget that we have 1.4 million more people in work in the United Kingdom than we had 10 years ago. Let him start talking up our achievements, rather than pointing to an agenda to which the Labour party has already signed up. That agenda would destroy millions of jobs through statutory works councils, a statutory minimum wage and a statutory compulsory working week. That is a recipe for disaster.