HC Deb 27 February 1990 vol 168 cc136-7W
Mrs. Gorman

To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many construction firms are protected from the levy to the construction industry training board as a result of the payroll figure of £15,000 contained in the Industrial Training Levy (Construction Board) Order 1989.

Mr. Nicholls

About 16,000 small employers are exempt from levy under the provisions of paragraph 5(1) of the schedule of the Industrial Training Levy (Construction Board) Order 1989. This is about 29 per cent. of firms on the board's levy register.

Mrs. Gorman

To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he has any plans to allow construction firms of any size to opt out of participation in the construction industry training board and run their own training schemes.

Mr. Nicholls

We are looking to employers to take more responsibility for training their work force. Grants from levy funds are made available by the construction industry training board to employers for training undertaken to industry agreed standards.

We will be asking the board when it is reconstituted to bring forward proposals which will extinguish the contribution made by the better training employers to the levy fund.

Mrs. Gorman

To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what factors he considered when setting the figure of £15,000 payroll under the Industrial Training Levy (Construction Board) Order 1989 as the starting point of contributions to the construction industry training board.

Mr. Nicholls

Two main factors were considered before deciding that the level should remain the same as that in the previous order—first, the need for firms to contribute to the costs of training the pool of workers upon which employers draw, and, secondly, that the smallest firms, that is those with the equivalent of a single employee, should be excluded from the levy.