§ Major GLYNasked the Minister of Labour whether the present awards to be paid to apprentices desiring to enter the engineering industry, and who are eighteen years of age, amount to 26s. 6d. per week; whether the existing rate paid to a first year apprentice is approximately 10s., and in the second year 15s. per week; whether the result of this in certain specialist branches of the industry has been that employers are unwilling to train boys of seventeen years of age who, within only twelve months of training will become entitled, when not fully trained or useful hands, to a sum of 41s. 6d. per week; whether this attitude of employers is preventing a number of suitable youths from joining the engineering 1358W industry, and to seek employment in blind alley professions; and whether this acts with peculiar hardship upon those young men whose apprenticeship training was interrupted by the War; and whether, in view of all the circumstances, he will consider how far the Government training scheme can improve matters by being made applicable to definite branches when the 26s. 6d. award is in operation?
§ Sir R. HORNEThe answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. The figures stated in the second part are correct in many cases. Where prescribed rates for apprentices, as defined by Section 4 of the Wages (Temporary Regulation) Act, 1918, exist, these rates have statutory force until 30th September, 1920. A few complaints have been received that employers are unwilling to train boys of seventeen years of age, but there is no evidence to show that difficulty is widespread. In the case of men whose apprenticeship was interrupted by service in His Majesty's Forces, there is in operation a Government scheme for assisting such persons, and no question therefore arises in their case. With regard to the last part of the question, if this refers to boys of seventeen years of age, it is not proposed to apply to such persons the scheme for assisting the ex-Service apprentices. As mentioned above, there is at present no evidence to justify action of this kind.