Mr. LiwydTo ask the Secretary of State for Employment what efforts have been made by her Department to ensure equality of access to training programmes for both men and women.
§ Mr. McLoughlinTraining and enterprise councils (TECs) have a contractual requirement to ensure equality of opportunity in all their activities. TECs have flexibility to tailor training to meet individuals' needs in both content and delivery, both to ensure equality of opportunity and so that people may continue to meet their domestic commitments while training. Furthermore, they are required to pay necessary child care costs to those in the employment training and youth training guarantee groups.
Equality of training opportunity will be recognised and encouraged by a new national training award recently introduced to be awarded for the training of women.