HL Deb 03 April 1985 vol 462 cc247-52

4.4. p.m.

The Minister without Portfolio (Lord Young of Graffham)

My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement which is being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Employment. The Statement is as follows:

"With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a Statement on employment and training.

"Last Thursday I published the White Paper Employment— The Challenge for the Nation. Today, in conjunction with my right honourable friends the Secretary of State for Education and Science and the Minister without Portfolio, I am publishing a further White Paper, entitled Education and Training for Young People. "The purpose of the first White Paper is to set out the facts and figures on the present employment situation; and to describe the strategy that the Government believe offers the best prospects for employment, with the steps already taken and the further measures proposed.

"There are three key elements in the Government's strategy towards employment. First, the Government must create an economic, financial and industrial climate in which enterprise can flourish. The priority is to control inflation. Without that there is no prospect that industry and commerce will compete successfully, raise output and create jobs. Secondly, the Government can help improve the labour market by encouraging more and better training, and by removing obstacles which hamper employers taking on workers. Finally, the Government can provide direct help for those worst affected by unemployment through, for example, the Community Programme.

"The second White Paper, Education and Training for Young People, deals with a key element in our strategy for employment—the reform of our education and training policies and programmes. It outlines our approach to work-related education and training for 14- to 18-year olds, and emphasises the need to develop more comprehensive and coherent provision for this age group.

"Improvements in education and training are crucial to strengthening the economy. Only then will industry and commerce be able to find skills they need if they are to become more competitive. Efforts to get a better trained workforce must be directed at everyone in it, irrespective of age or occupation. But, in particular, we must ensure that our young people are properly prepared for the world of work. We intend to build on the success of recent achievements by taking action in three particular fields: introducing new arrangements for in-service teacher training related to the Technical and Vocational Education Initiative; setting up a view of vocational qualifications; and bringing in a new two-year Youth Training Scheme. These actions flow from the review of provision for 14- to 18-year-olds carried out by the Minister without Portfolio.

"As regards the Youth Training Scheme, the Government are providing substantial additional resources so that, from April 1986, we are able to offer a second year of training to 16-year-old school leavers and a one-year place to 17-year-old school leavers. Our aim is that all our young people leaving school will have the chance to get vocational qualifications. The Manpower Services Commission have warmly and unanimously welcomed these proposals and have now put in hand the necessary consultations with a view to reporting back to me by the end of June.

"The new training scheme, together with the parallel changes in education and the review of vocational qualifications, will help to put vocational education and training for our young people on a par with that of our main competitors, and will help create a more flexible labour force and more competitive economy.

"Taken together, these two White Papers set out clearly the Government's strategy for employment and give the details of the new proposals for improving vocational education and training in this country, which I hope will command the support of the whole House".

My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

Lord McCarthy

My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Young of Graffham, for repeating the Statement. I can tell him, and I could have told the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, had he been here, that we like the second White Paper much more than we like the first White Paper; after all, it actually proposes things. Most of the things, indeed, I would say all of the things, that it proposes we are very much in favour of ourselves. I should like to concentrate, if I may, as did the Statement, on what is suggested in the White Paper for the Youth Training Scheme.

I should just like briefly to ask the noble Lord a number of questions. There is still, as I understand it, nothing in the White Paper—although I have not had very long to read it—to tell us the precise numbers which the Government believe will be covered by the extra year of the YTS. I ask this because there is something unusual, as I see it, about the costs. The costs for the second year are an extra £125 million for 1986–87 and £300 million in 1987–88. For this we appear to be getting an extra year on the programme for something like a third of the cost for the first year of it. That seems very cheap. Therefore, I am interested in how many people he believes will be going through the programme in the first year, how many in the second year, and how that relates to the numbers going through the YTS at the moment.

Secondly, I should like to ask about the contribution of employers because in the Budget Statement, and indeed in the White Paper, it is said that a significant and substantial contribution will be made by employers this time. I understand that and I think it is right because employers, with the second year and with young people from 16 to 17, will be getting better value. Better training, we hope, will be provided and therefore it is reasonable that they should make a larger contribution. But there is nothing in the White Paper yet as to what the contribution will be. Can the noble Lord help me on that?

Next, there is nothing about the allowance. Regarding the second year, with training from 16 to 17, or two-year training, say, for someone who goes in at 16 and comes out at 18, is it intended that the same allowance will apply throughout the the two-year period? Or will there be a stepped allowance in which the second year, or the year of entry if it is 16, is significantly higher than the present level of the training allowance? I should have thought that would be reasonable, and that although the Government have never been able to meet the TUC on the kind of figure that they thought reasonable for the first year of the YTS, they might be prepared to go some way regarding the second year of the YTS. I should like to ask him about that.

Finally, as regards the disappearance of the young workers' scheme, why has that disappeared? Why is there nothing in the White Paper? Why was there nothing in the Budget? In terms of money, we were told, it was a great success. We were told that 360,000 people went through it at a very small cost. It is true that we were subsequently told, and indeed the Department of Employment told the Public Accounts Committee, that the overwhelming majority of young workers who went on the young workers' scheme would have got jobs anyway. It is true that we know of many employers who actually split the allowance with their workers. Why have we seen the end of the young workers' scheme if it was such a good scheme? And if indeed it was such a bad scheme, as we always said it was, why cannot the Government say so and can we be sure that nothing like it will be seen again?

Lord Rochester

My Lords, from these Benches I should like to join in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Young of Graffham, for having repeated this Statement. We would congratulate the Government on the success which has attended the Technical and Vocational Education Initiative referred to in the Statement, even though at the time it was introduced we deplored the absence, as we saw it, of adequate consultation before it was actually introduced. In that connection, can the Minister please tell us what consultation, if any, there may as yet have been with the educational authorities about the projected in-service training for teachers?

We very much welcome also the planned expansion in the Youth Training Scheme so that eventually everybody aged under 18 will have the chance of job education or training. That is a policy which the Liberal-Social Democratic Alliance has advocated for a long time. But following in degree what it is that the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, has already said, will the noble Lord confirm that the fact that there is no reference in this Statement or indeed (so far as I know) in any other of the various White Papers that have been put before us in the past week or so to the payment of supplementary benefit in connection with the Youth Training Scheme, may be taken as an indication that there are no plans for changes in the existing arrangements? For is it not much better to make the scheme so attractive that young people are anxious to take part in it rather than to confront them with penalties if they do not?

We are glad—and this, too, is referred to in the Statement—that the Manpower Services Commission have been asked to undertake a comprehensive review of vocational qualifications with the aim of ensuring that there is a system which young people can join at any stage, one that is based on achieving recognised standards rather than time-serving, and one which provides opportunities for progress towards higher skills and is relevant, we hope flexibly, to industrial and commercial needs.

Reference is also made in the Statement to the community development programme. I have one more question to ask the noble Lord, if he will be kind enough to answer it. Depending on the progress that is made in the development of that scheme, which we very much welcome, do the Government have an open mind as to the possibility of increasing the numbers eligible for that programme if the present deplorable increase in long-term unemployment, particularly among young people aged under 25, continues?

Lord Young of Graffham

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, for his implicit backing for this White Paper. I should like to assure him that the Government have not been entirely prescriptive about the shape of the Youth Training Scheme. Indeed, it is now with the Manpower Services Commission for them to negotiate, with the partners in the commission, the precise shape so that employers, unions and the world of education will have the very last word and it is hoped will come back with a scheme which will be acceptable to all parties and acceptable to the Government; one that will be able to take within it some 200,000 to 350,000 young people for training.

As regards the great change in the new Youth Training Scheme, this is not simply that it is a doubling of the present scheme: it is that the second year is directed towards occupational qualifications, and this marks a substantial step forward. Of course, the young workers' scheme was a great success, but having a great success does not mean that we should be content with it. I hope very much that the new and improved version of the Youth Training Scheme will be better, as of course it does provide training in itself.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, for his comments and in particular for his noting of the review of vocational qualifications. In many ways, this is perhaps the most important part of the White Paper since it will by its very nature imply a review of all qualifications—not just for those in apprenticeship but those in all occupations. I hope it will have a beneficial effect, not only on the college system but also on employers and indeed on the school system itself. I believe it will be a considerable step forward.

I hope very much, too, that the Government will find that the community programme will be welcomed by the outside community, and that we shall see the increase. The Government have been particularly generous in increasing the number of places from 130,000 to 230,000. I think it is important to see that these places are filled before we actually consider what happens next.

Lord Molloy

My Lords, would the noble Minister not agree that this last White Paper, as the noble Lord, Lord McCarthy, has said, is an improvement on the previous White Papers, but the grim truth is that White Papers over the past couple of years, and all the legislation that has flowed from them, has not to any great degree made any massive improvement in the situation? Young students with massive ability, on leaving our universities and technical colleges, are on the dole and unemployed because there is no particular industry that can take advantage of the qualities that they have obtained in technical colleges, on training schemes and in universities. Therefore, would he not agree that all of this will be absolutely useless unless we really consider what has to be done in this extraordinarily difficult task? I immediately concede that it is an enormously difficult task, but it will have to be done to make these White Papers worthwhile. The task involves setting about the entire reconstruction of the United Kingdom's industrial base so as to take advantage of the training that the White Paper indicates will be available for young people.

4.15 p.m.

Lord Young of Graffham

My Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Molloy, and, indeed, all of your Lordships, will not wish me to anticipate what I shall have to say later in winding-up the debate this afternoon, save to say this. What we are talking about is foundation training for all our young people, and the very first paragraph of the White Paper points out that many people leaving school today will not retire until the second third of the next century. The world that they will then live in is unimaginable to us. We are talking about providing flexible and broad foundation training and the beginning of a national programme of vocational occupation schemes. However, I am grateful to your Lordships for welcoming the Statement.

Lord Boyd-Carpenter

My Lords, I wonder whether my noble friend can clear up the question of the inter-relation of the very interesting proposals which he has just announced and the existing provisions for vocational training for young people. For example, I have in mind the fact that the catering industry already undertakes very substantial training work in respect of young people. How will that be slotted into the new scheme? How, also, does the new scheme relate to recruitment by the armed forces of young people—the young soldiers' type of scheme—which also serves a very useful purpose? How will all these be brought together?

Lord Young of Graffham

My Lords, I thank my noble friend. The precise shape of the new scheme remains to be determined. It will be determined by consultation and agreement between all the parties. I note very much my noble friend's comments about the catering industry. That is already provided for within the existing Youth Training Scheme, and I hope that the new scheme will, indeed, look at all the requirements for catering, which is one of the very real growth areas in our economy today in terms of employment.

Lord Davies of Leek

My Lords, I wish to thank the Minister for the Statement, and I am sure that we are looking forward to a full debate on this subject. Nevertheless, is the noble Lord aware that at least in the history of our people we have come to the end of the smoke stack era? Unemployment is due to the micro-electronic and electronic gadgets that we now have and we can no longer solve the problem of full employment in any of the old Gladstone, Marxist or other ways. We must look at the world through new eyes. Nobody yet knows the answers, but I hope that this will be looked at. As the Christian Science Monitor pointed out the other day, there are 14 million people in Europe looking for jobs. This is the problem of the technological age, which is a mighty challenge to modern man.

Lord Young of Graffham

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his comments. One of the points which concerns me is why there should be so many people looking for jobs in Europe, but very few looking for jobs in the United States. It is a conundrum on which I hope I can amplify a little later on. But let me assure your Lordships that, although the smoke stack industries have disappeared, manufacturing will not disappear in this country. It may not be a great employer of people, but there are many other ways to employ people. I hope very much that we shall live through an era in which we see manufacturing rightly restored as a wealth producer for our people.

Lord Harmar-Nicholls

My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the two White Papers and the Statement will be accepted as a sober and constructive attempt to face up to this problem? But in dealing with the more sophisticated ideas that are shown in the White Papers, will my noble friend see to it that we do not overlook the very important point of literacy in its earliest stages? Those of us who tried to operate the young worker schemes, and who did so with some success, found all too often that young people in, for example, the hotel industry, who were bright and keen in every other respect, were not capable of writing down the name of a newspaper or the name of a resident, in order that people could be given service the next day. That sort of elementary illiteracy is something which ought not to be overlooked when we are looking at overcoming some of the bars to getting people into work.

Lord Young of Graffham

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for his comments. This is a matter of some considerable concern to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science and, indeed, it has been pointed out to me on occasion by employers and potential employers up and down the land. It is not a matter with which resources as such are concerned. It is one of those areas where quality is more important than quantity. While I am on my feet, perhaps I may say that I hope that your Lordships will accept my apologies if I have to leave the debate for a few minutes to deal with matters arising out of the White Paper; but I shall return as speedily as I can.