Youth Training Scheme (Hansard, 21 December 1983)

§ Mr. Tom King

The youth training scheme has made a successful start. Almost 300,000 have already joined the Scheme. All the signs are that it is establishing itself as a major training scheme for young people. To have achieved so much within 18 months of the scheme's announcement is remarkable and I would like to congratulate the Manpower Services Commission, its staff and everyone who helped to make this possible. It has been a considerable achievement involving co-operation not only between all the employers who have offered so many places, but also trade unions, local authorities, voluntary organisations, colleges, schools and the Careers Service.

I have now received the commission's advice on the scheme for next year. It recommends that 1984–85 should be a year of consolidation with the emphasis on developing 251W the quality of training. It also recommends that efforts should be made to increase the coverage of 16-year-olds and to that end the young workers scheme should not apply to 16-year-olds, and that the present unemployment condition for 17-year-old leavers should be removed.

I accept that the emphasis must be on consolidating the major advances made this year. We must continue to develop the quality of the training offered and we must ensure that we forge the right links with vocational education and further skill training. I have considered the recommendation for a change in the eligibility of 17-yearold leavers, but I think it right to concentrate in 1984–85 on improving and extending the scheme broadly within the present client groups.

I have also considered carefully the proposal put to me by the MSC that the relationship between the YTS and the young workers scheme should be changed. I am concerned to ensure in the interests of helping young people into employment that our training objectives under the youth training scheme are met and also that the YWS continues to encourage the payment of realistic rates of pay for young people. The availability of YWS for 16-year-olds may discourage employers from providing training through YTS for those who leave school at the minimum age.

In order to avoid this and encourage employers to provide more jobs for trainees completing their year on YTS, I have decided that in 1984–85 YWS should no longer be available for those who leave school at 16 until they have been out of school for a year. This change will apply to those who take up jobs on or after 1 April 1984. Young people staying on in education and leaving at 17 will continue to be eligible for the young workers scheme immediately on leaving education. Employers will be able to claim a subsidy of £15 a week in respect of eligible young people earning £50 or less a week in jobs taken up on or after 1 April 1984.

I have also decided to accept a recommendation from MSC to reduce the threshold above which trainee travel expenses are reimbursed, so as to help those participants with high travel costs, particularly in rural areas. The threshold will be reduced from the current £4 to £3, with effect from February 1984.

The costs involved in these proposals will be met from within the agreed resources of the MSC and my Department.