HC Deb 13 November 1996 vol 285 cc340-1
4. Mr. Rooney

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what recent representations she has received on the effectiveness of the youth training scheme. [2073]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mr. James Paice)

The Department has recently received many representations as part of a public consultation on the future of youth training as recommended by Sir Ron Dearing in his review of 16-to-19 qualifications.

Mr. Rooney

The Minister will be aware that some 50 per cent. of trainees fail to complete their youth training course. It is now 10 years since the rate for 17-year-olds and eight years since the rate for 16-year-olds was increased. Would not a review of training allowances encourage people to stay longer in the training scheme?

Mr. Paice

The figure for the number of leavers is open to confusion because it includes those who leave one scheme to re-enrol on another. They are classified as leavers even if they go on to complete a second scheme that proves more to their liking. Therefore, that is not an accurate figure to quote.

We have always made it clear that the allowances are minimums. Roughly a third of people on the youth training programme are regarded as employees on a wage agreed with their employer, another third receive significant top-up payments from the training provider or the business with which they are associated, and the other third are on the basic rate. But, as we have always said, that figure is kept under review.

Mr. Jacques Arnold

Is it not encouraging that the number of young people aged 16 and 17 who have completed their compulsory education and are in training or full-time education has risen from 71 per cent. only 10 years ago to 84 per cent. today? Is that not significant in respect of what the Government are doing and very encouraging for our young people who have to compete in the modern world?

Mr. Paice

My hon. Friend is entirely right. Those figures represent a dramatic increase in participation in all sorts of learning, both in full-time education and in training.

Mr. Blunkett

And in training!

Mr. Paice

The barracking from hon. Members on the Opposition Front Bench is interesting—

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mr. Robin Squire)

They are not listening.

Mr. Paice

I think that they are listening because, interestingly, the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) is denigrating the fact that some of those people are in training and not in full-time education. He obviously believes that it is somehow better to be in full-time education than in training. I have to tell him that, if he talks to business men, he will hear that they often find it much better to have a young person in their business—perhaps on a modern apprenticeship programme—who is learning on the job. They are just as capable of developing qualifications in that way and that is why my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Mr. Arnold) was entirely right to draw our attention to those figures.