§ 8. Mr. Peter BottomleyTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what assessment she has made of the effects of labour market regulation on levels of youth unemployment. [31789]
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Mr. Robin Squire)The Government believe that labour market regulation damages the level of employment, particularly for young people. Youth unemployment is higher in France and Spain, both of which have a statutory minimum wage.
§ Mr. BottomleyThe House will welcome the growing number of teenagers who stay on in education and training. Will my hon. Friend make inquiries to ascertain what rates of pay are agreed for people aged 17 and 16 in the Trades Union Congress, in the CBI, in his own Department and in the House of Commons Commission? I believe that he will discover that regulation is not only what is imposed by Government, but that it can be agreements between managers and unions that exclude young people from obtaining the experience on the basis of which they will be hired and taken on.
§ Mr. SquireMy hon. Friend will understand if I do not answer every aspect of his question. I shall certainly look into the point that he raises. It will assist the House as well as my hon. Friend if I say that, in September 1994, there were 2,313 16 to 21-year-olds employed in the former Department of Employment—56 per cent. of them were paid more than £8,000 a year. I shall come back to my hon. Friend, not only on the equivalent figures with regard to education in the combined Department, but on the other aspects that he mentioned.
§ Mr. BurdenWhy should young unemployed people have confidence that the Government have any concern for their welfare or the welfare of anyone in work when Ministers have admitted that, on no fewer than 16,000 occasions in the past five years—there are records to show this—employers have broken the law in relation to notification of redundancies to the Department? On not one occasion have Ministers prosecuted an employer for breaking those laws. How will the abolition of the Department of Employment help to resolve that problem? Will the Government now start insisting that employers have to abide by the laws of this land?
§ Mr. SquireThe answer to the first part of the hon. Gentleman's question on the consequences of the abolition of the Department is that there will be no change in terms of the state of the law, which will continue to be implemented as it has in the past. The hon. Gentleman asked his question against a background of a significant improvement in the prospects of young people gaining employment over the past two years. Claimant unemployment for under-25s has fallen by 200,000 over the past two years—a faster rate of decline than for the population in general. As the House knows, but the 737 Labour party tends to ignore, the rates for youth unemployment in this country remain among the best in Europe.