§ Mr. GreenTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what estimate he has made of the number of 18 to 24-year-olds who will enter the New Deal in(a) 1999–2000, (b) 2000–01 and (3) 2001–02. [67410]
§ Mr. Andrew Smith[holding answer 25 January 1999]: By convention, the Government do not publish forecasts of unemployment. The New Deal for young people is being delivered through local partnerships. For planning purposes, the Employment Service needs to provide its managers and partners in each local unit of delivery with indicative assumptions for the numbers of young people who might join the New Deal in the year ahead. Such planning assumptions are based on current unemployment levels. They are not forecasts of the actual numbers who will participate in the programme.
We expect the indicative planning assumptions for local units of delivery for 1999–2000 to sum to a figure in the range 200,000 to 250,000 for Britain as a whole. At this stage, we would expect the figures for subsequent years to fall within a similar range.
402WI placed the planning assumption figures for 1998–99 in the Library in March 1998, and I will put the planning assumption figures for 1999–2000 in the Library as soon as they are ready.