§ Mr. Leightonasked the Paymaster General what progress has been made in the eight inner city pilot projects; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. Kenneth ClarkeThe eight inner city task forces have made considerable progress in drawing up, and now starting to implement, plans to achieve the objectives of the inner cities initiative. The task forces are ensuring that existing Government resources are targeted more effectively on their areas, and are also looking for new ways of encouraging employment and enterprise. Already some 34 projects involving about £1.3 million of the inner cities initiative budget have been approved for support. There have also been major projects financed by, for example, the Department of Environment, the Home Office and the Manpower Services Commission under other mainstream programmes in the task force areas as part of our extra attention to those areas.
We are addressing a number of further particular issues:
Plans are advanced for a scheme using local labour on an urban development project in Handsworth. This will ensure that local people benefit from the jobs available. We intend to carry forward this approach in other task force areas.A number of projects aim to encourage enterprise, particularly among young people and ethnic minorities. These include support for black enterprise agencies, skill training facilities and managed workshops, and the Industrial Society's "Headstart in Business" courses which we are supporting in six task force areas.We are particularly concerned to encourage sponsorship by private sector firms of projects under the community programme. At least 10 of the 20 pilot community programme projects with improved funding to encourage private sector involvement will be in task force areas.I have also reached an agreement with the Association of British Insurers to set up contact points to deal locally with problems of the availability of insurance for businesses in our inner cities.