§ Mr. Arthur Davidsonasked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will give a yearly breakdown, since 1979, of how many young people have been registered with the youth opportunities programme scheme in (a) Accrington, (b) North-East Lancashire and (c) on a national basis; how many of these completing their first scheme have (i) found employment, (ii) returned to education or joined another youth opportunity programme scheme and (iii) were registered as unemployed during this period.
§ Mr. Peter MorrisonI shall reply to the hon. Member as soon as possible.
§ Mr. Arthur Davidsonasked the Secretary of State for Employment how many of those who left school at the end of the last academic year in (a) Accrington and (b) North-East Lancashire, failed to find full-time employment; and how many have joined a youth opportunities programme scheme.
§ Mr. Peter MorrisonInformation is not available in the exact form requested. Unemployment statistics do not distinguish the numbers of last year's school leavers from other registered unemployed school leavers. The following table shows the number of young people who have entered the youth opportunities programme, broken down into areas which coincide as closely as possible with the areas requested:
Youth Opportunities Programme entrants 1 April 1981 to 31 March 1982 Hyndburn Local Authority District (including Accrington) 960 Manpower Services Commission's Preston Area Office (which includes the whole of Lancashire County) 19,990 It is estimated that some two-thirds of the entrants in the Manpower Services Commission's Preston area office district were school leavers. It is not possible to accurately estimate the number of school leavers in the Hyndburn local authority district.