Engineering Industry: Training (Hansard, 11 July 1989)

§ The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Lord Young of Graffham)
My Lords, no. The Government believe that the independent and voluntary industry training organisations must be responsible for defining and monitoring standards and key skill requirements and for securing the commitment of senior management in the industry.

§ Viscount Hanworth
My Lords, does the noble Lord realise that at present, even with a certain amount of surveillance, many companies provide quite inadequate training? Does he agree that if there is no outside surveillance there is a reluctance on the part of any industry training board to hold responsible those who are not doing a decent job? Does he also agree that if that board is controlled by large companies its views will not be welcomed by smaller companies? Finally, does he realise that although it is customary to allow some professions to govern their own affairs—and, where codes of ethics are breached, to deal with offenders—that is not always a satisfactory arrangement? Does he agree that training is a very different matter? It is not a matter of ethics; it is a question which affects all the members of that profession. It is a question of ensuring that a decent job is done.

§ Lord Young of Graffham
My Lords, it is my understanding that the Question is about training and not about ethics. I can tell the noble Lord that one characteristic of the 1960s and 1970s was the inadequacy of training arrangements in British industry. Yet in that same period we had a multiplicity of compulsory training boards. There is no substitute for industry recognising the need to train in its own right. Nothing will change that.

The Earl of Halsbury
My Lords, is it not the case that there ought to be close liaison between the industry training board and the chartered engineers?

§ Lord Young of Graffham
My Lords, I believe that the voluntary arrangements will result in a closer arrangement between the various statutory and professional bodies and the industries themselves. At the end of the day companies have to realise that it is in their own self-interest to train, with the increased professionalism that that brings. Until they do so no Acts of Parliament and no exhortation by Ministers will change the situation.

§ Baroness Turner of Camden
My Lords, is the Minister aware that the Engineering Industry Training Board has an excellent reputation for training women in the engineering industry? Is he 98 also aware that it currently has a number of excellent projects aimed specifically at increasing the number of women interested in a career in engineering, including women with no previous qualifications? What organisation will undertake that kind of work in future when the EITB no longer exists?

§ Lord Young of Graffham
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness. I understand that this very day the Engineering Industry Training Board has written to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Employment suggesting that it transfers to a voluntary basis. I am aware of the many programmes that the board has run, and I have supported them in the past in a previous incarnation. In particular I pay tribute to programmes such as those for women technicians and the like. The board will, of course, have to make arrangements to ensure that those continue.

§ Viscount Caldecote
My Lords, is my noble friend aware of the situation which prevailed before the establishment of the Engineering Industry Training Board? Enterprising companies spent a great deal of money on training people only to have the skilled staff they had trained poached by other companies which had spent no money on training. Is he satisfied that the new arrangements for transferring the Engineering Industry Training Board to industry will provide a satisfactory supply of trained manpower in the absence of any external monitoring arrangement as suggested in the Question?

§ Lord Young of Graffham
My Lords, no amount of external monitoring will change the reality that companies have to recognise that they must train for themselves. It is true that in the past many companies poached staff. Undoubtedly at times of skill shortage some may do so today. However, in my travels around industry—and I spend a great deal of time travelling around industry—I have noticed a fundamental change in the attitude of many companies in this country towards training. I think that today we are at long last beginning to make proper provision for the future.

§ Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos
My Lords, the noble Lord gave a very disturbing reply to my noble friend when he said that someone will have to make some arrangements. What precisely did he mean? Who will make the arrangements? What arrangements will be made? What part are he and his department playing in this?

§ Lord Young of Graffham
My Lords, the arrangements will have to be made by the engineering industry on its own account. It is the engineering industry which has been responsible for the Engineering Industry Training Board and which has come to my right honourable friend to suggest that the scheme be put on a voluntary basis. Those up and down the land in the engineering industry know that statutory boards have in the past led to increased bureaucracy and precious little new training. The sooner we recognise the, reality of the situation, the better.

§ Lord Rochester
My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that one of his successors as chairman of the Manpower Services Commission and also the chairman of the Training Commission as it then was both criticised a number of non-statutory training organisations for not promoting adequate training in their sectors? Should not the Government therefore accept some responsibility for ensuring that training reaches an acceptable standard in all companies, particularly those in the engineering sector?

§ Lord Young of Graffham
My Lords, I suspect that I am more susceptible to flattery than the next man. I therefore gratefully accept what the noble Lord says about the activities of bodies with which I have been connected in the past. However, we must decide which is the best way to go about the matter—either through statutory boards, which have clearly failed, or voluntary boards, which are working well in many industries. At the end of the day, whether the boards are statutory or voluntary, change depends upon the attitude of those who run industry. It is that attitude which in the long run must change.

§ Lord Dormand of Easington
My Lords, the Secretary of State has said twice that we must face the reality of this world. Is not part of that reality the inevitability that some employers will not pay a voluntary levy and will poach employees who have been trained by other companies? I realise the problems, but is not some form of statutory levy inevitable and necessary if we are to have a successful industrial training scheme?

§ Lord Young of Graffham
My Lords, I fear that such a levy did not work in the past. And there is no way in which it will work in the future. There were some 17 statutory bodies when I first arrived at the Manpower Services Commission: one by one they have gone. We now have voluntary schemes. The industries support the voluntary schemes with enthusiasm whereas they supported the statutory schemes with great reluctance. However, as I fear I have already stated, at the end of the day it is a change of attitude by industry—not monitoring by external bodies or a decision to make the scheme compulsory — that is needed. I am now convinced that industry is changing.

§ Lord Tordoff
My Lords, does the noble Lord accept that my noble friend is not asking for statutory bodies to run these matters? Many of us accept that there was a considerable amount of bureaucracy in the days of the statutory bodies. What is asked for is a small, independent monitoring body. Does the noble Lord accept that, at a time when we are running into skill shortages in this country which put pressure on the economy and which in turn add to inflationary pressures, something along those lines might be seen to be necessary? Should not the Government take some part in this?

§ Lord Young of Graffham
My Lords, only this very day has the application from the Engineering Industry Training Board been received by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for 100 Employment. I have no doubt at all that he will read today's Hansard. If not, I shall draw to his attention what has been said in this House. He may well consider proceeding with the idea, but, whatever the position, at the end of the day it is up to industry up and down the land to put its own house in order.

§ Lord Dean of Beswick
My Lords, the Secretary of State said that the statutory body that is to be disbanded failed. However, is he aware that when that body functioned under the chairmanship of my noble friend Lord Scanlon, there were three times as many apprentices in training in the engineering industry as there are now and in industry in general? How can he claim that to be a failure? Is he saying that there is a guarantee that the new body will achieve the figure that was achieved under the chairmanship of my noble friend?

§ Lord Young of Graffham
No, my Lords. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Scanlon, and to the work that he did at the Engineering Industry Training Board. But it was a different industry then and there were different requirements. It was a time when computer-controlled machines had not appeared and the whole shape of the industry was different. Today, one man does eight men's work in that industry because of the way in which modern technology works. Industry must train for the future and not consider itself hidebound by the past. It is my understanding that the Engineering Industry Training Board has voluntarily asked to be disbanded and to become a voluntary scheme. The Government have not turned it in that direction.