Engineering Industry: Support for Training (Hansard, 28 February 1990)

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Employment (Lord Strathclyde)
My Lords, we have written to the European Commission asking that the successor bodies to industry training boards, including that for the engineering industry, be allowed to continue applying to the European Social Fund on the same basis as the existing boards. We are awaiting the Commission's response.

§ Baroness Turner of Camden
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that reply. However, is there not a problem that we may not be able to qualify for European Social Fund money if we abandon, as is the intention, the grant and levy system which we have at present? I understand that one of the qualifying bases for obtaining European Social Fund money is that there must be an input of public funds and the grant and levy system qualified in that regard.

§ Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, the noble Baroness will no doubt be aware that the levy system allows for exemptions and that is does at present qualify for European Social Fund money. The clarification that we seek concerns the situation under the new regime and we shall have to await the response.

§ Lord Rochester
My Lords, will the Minister go a little further and agree that it would be highly damaging to this country's interests if the Government's decision to convert the Engineering Industry Training Board into a non-statutory organisation were to result in any reduction in the financial support that we receive from the European Social Fund?

§ Lord Strathclyde
Yes, my Lords, but it is up to the European Social Fund to decide exactly how much money should be handed out to all the people who would like money from the fund. Generally speaking, the amount of money that is received from the European Social Fund as a proportion of the total amount of money that is spent on training in the engineering industry is very small. A couple of years ago the figures were some £5 million from the ESF compared with over £2 billion spent by the rest of the industry.

§ Baroness Elles
My Lords, will my noble friend confirm that funds from the European Social Fund must be matched by either an equivalent or a percentage sum and that the source is irrelevant? It need not be the Government; it could be a private source. If the engineering training board was a private statutory company, it could match the resources.

§ Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, I believe that my noble friend is only partly right. I understand that the rules require that the funding must be matched by public sector finance. However, there is some discussion as to what exactly "public sector finance" means. We are trying to show that, whether it is a privately led organisation or one which is totally subsidised by taxpayers' money, the industry training board should still receive social fund money.

§ Lord Dormand of Easington
My Lords, why is the Minister so equivocal? Is there not simply a conflict here resulting from the doctrinaire approach to training adopted in this country about which many of us have commented? What will happen if the noble Lord does not receive the reply that he expects from the European Commission?

§ Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, the noble Lord has got it quite wrong. We are not being at all doctrinaire; we are being exactly the opposite. We are moving away from a statutory organisation to one which is far freer and market-led by the industry. That is not a doctrinaire approach. We hope to receive a response from the Commission fairly soon and we shall have to review the situation at that stage.

§ Baroness Seear
My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that it is just as much a doctrine to believe in the free market—a doctrine which I happen to share with him—as it is to believe in public ownership? It is not a matter of being doctrinaire. One is not only doctrinaire because one believes in socialist doctrines. There are other, better doctrines, in which we all believe.

§ Lord Strathclyde
Yes, my Lords. I shall not quarrel with the noble Baroness over semantics.

§ Baroness Phillips
My Lords, is there any question of money not coming from Europe if the engineering industry does not have as many training places for women as it has for men?

§ Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, the engineering industry is totally non-discriminatory. I am sure that it will continue to support women in the engineering industry as much as it has done in the past.

§ Lord Dean of Beswick
My Lords, is the Minister aware that unless there is a substantial increase in the training of apprentices in the engineering industry in this country up to something like it was a decade ago, we shall be in no position to take advantage of the single market that will be in existence from 1992? Bearing that in mind, if we do not get the funds from Europe, will the Government look at this matter as one of urgency and themselves provide funds or more money toward that end?

§ Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, it is precisely because training provision has failed over several decades that we have elected to go into the new regime. We have had in this House many debates on training and we believe that in future in the 1990s training provision in this country will be far better than it has ever been before.