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House of Commons
Tuesday 24 April 1990
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. Speaker-- in the Chair ]
New Writ
For the county constituency of Upper Bann, in the room of James Harold McCusker Esquire, deceased.-- [Mr. Molyneaux.]
Oral Answers to Questions
EMPLOYMENT
Low Wages
1. Mr. Boyes : To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how he intends to raise the number of prosecutions for firms paying below wages council minima.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Patrick Nicholls) : The policy of the wages inspectorate under all Governments has been to seek compliance with wages council regulations by advice and persuasion and to prosecute only where an offence is deliberate or repeated and the evidence is considered sufficient. There are no plans to change that policy.
Mr. Boyes : Is not it a scandal and an outrage that tens of thousands of workers are being paid below the minimum wage in companies such as Superbadge in my constituency? In view of the Minister's remarks, I hope that he will look into that company. The Government have been particularly vindictive in several ways. First, there is now only one inspector for 5,000 workers and there were only nine prosecutions in 1989-- [Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker : Order. The hon. Member must ask a question, please, not start a debate.
Mr. Boyes : On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I started by asking a question.
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman : You did not.
Mr. Speaker : The hon. Gentleman did, but hon. Members should seek to limit their questions to one so that more hon. Members have an opportunity to participate.
Mr. Boyes : I asked only one question. We should not give way to one hon. Member who shouts silly remarks.
Is not it time that the numbers of prosecutions and inspectors were increased? Is not it time also that low-paid workers were protected by the Government instead of allowing companies to flout the regulations?
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Mr. Nicholls : The hon. Gentleman is to be complimented on packing a lot of nonsense into a short space of time. Far from there being evidence of widespread under-compliance by employers, even in premises checked by inspectors 96 to 97 per cent. of those employed are being paid in accordance with the law. On prosecution policy, it may be of some comfort for the hon. Gentleman to know that the rate of prosecutions is higher than it was under the Labour Government. If the hon. Gentleman has a particular constituency case, I shall of course be delighted to look into it.
Mr. Hind : Will my hon. Friend firmly reject the Labour party's proposal for a statutory minimum wage? Does he agree that that would lead to people on low pay having no jobs at all, the misery of unemployment and all the consequences for families which go with that?
Mr Nicholls : My hon. Friend is entirely right. The overwhelming number of studies show that the minimum wage policy advocated by the Labour party would have that effect. The difficulty with Labour Members is that they cannot appreciate the fact that no job is worse than low pay.
Government Training Schemes
2. Mr. Flannery : To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many young people are currently engaged on Government training schemes.
The Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Michael Howard) : There are 377,700 young people currently engaged on Government training schemes. That figure does not include young people being educated and trained in the 29 inner city compacts and the 3,000 schools and colleges involved in the technical and vocational education initiative, which together cover a further 656,000 young people.
Mr. Flannery : I hope that the Minister will agree that the quality of training depends on the availability of resources to train young people. Why is he cutting the cost per unit for training of our young people when our competitors in West Germany, for instance, are giving far more than we do to train their young people? Will the Secretary of State give serious thought to that when seeking to justify those cuts to the House?
Mr. Howard : One thing that we are often told about West Germany is the contribution that employers make to the training of young people there. The hon. Gentleman is no doubt aware that the contribution made by our employers to the training of young people here has increased from £33 million to £200 million in the past four years. We expect that trend to continue and to contribute a great deal towards increasing the quality of training for our young people.
Mr. Nicholas Bennett : Does my right hon. and learned Friend recall the criticisms that were made of the youth opportunities programme and the improvements that have been made in YTS? Would he like to tell the House that four out of every five people who go on a youth training scheme either get a job or go on to further education? Does he agree that that is a considerable achievement?
Mr. Howard : My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is no comparison between the virtually nothing that was
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done for training young people when the Labour Government were in office and the quality training received by 2 million people under the youth training scheme. My hon. Friend was right in his identification of the proportion who go into jobs or further education.Mr. Blair : Will the Secretary of State confirm that the new contracts for training providers, especially in the voluntary sector, are in a state of near chaos with literally thousands of training places for those with special training needs being put at risk? Is he aware that one voluntary organisation, for the resettlement of young offenders, has put the whole of its 250 youth training staff under threat of redundancy? What steps is the Secretary of State taking as a matter of urgency to ensure that those with special training needs--the most vulnerable in our work force--are not the first casualties of the enormous cut in youth training?
Mr. Howard : I certainly will not confirm what the hon. Gentleman has said. The contracts with the training providers are still under negotiation. They have not yet been finalised. When we finalise them we shall take full account of those with special needs. Before the hon. Gentleman talks about resources, he should have a word with the shadow Chief Secretary who has conspicuously omitted to include training as one of the two priority areas on which it is claimed that a Labour Government would increase spending.
Mr. Tredinnick : Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that Employment Training Services (East Midlands) Ltd. at Hinckley in my constituency, which was formed under his programme, has been so successful that it has had a 90 per cent. occupancy rate with 50 per cent. of those being trained there going on to take up jobs? Indeed, I was privileged to be able to open its new training centre in March this year.
Mr. Howard : I know of the close interest that my hon. Friend takes in that scheme, which is typical of the excellence of the training being provided for young people all over the country.
Engineering Apprenticeships
3. Mr. Grocott : To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what were the numbers of engineering apprenticeships available in the west midlands (a) in 1979, (b) in 1984 and (c) in the latest year for which figures are available.
Mr. Nicholls : Engineering apprenticeships are essentially a matter between an employer and the individual trainee ; no regular statistics are maintained about them. There are a number of training routes for skilled engineering and technician workers, of which apprenticeships are only one.
The engineering industry training board however, compiles a register of those completing the first stage of engineering craft and technician training. For the west midlands area the figures are 3,710 in 1978-79, 1,320 in 1983-84 and 1,903 in 1988-89.
Mr. Grocott : The House will understand why the Minister wanted to fudge that reply. The answer from official Department of Employment statistics in that in 1981 manufacturing apprenticeships in the west midlands
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totalled 17,700 whereas in 1989 the figure had fallen to 6,900. Is not that a dreadful indictment of 10 years of Thatcherism? How on earth can we expect to compete in the 1990s if we are not giving our young people the apprenticeship opportunities that they have had in the past?Mr. Nicholls : The only indictment is that of the hon. Gentleman for not having read his own question before coming into the Chamber. He has just asked a supplementary question about manufacturing apprenticeships when his main question dealt with engineering apprenticeships. I have given the hon. Gentleman the answer to that question. I assume that other opportunities are of some interest to the hon. Gentleman, so he should note that there were 4,700 engineering training places available on YTS in the west midlands and 4,500 trainees. That is something which he ought to welcome, but clearly he will not.
Mr. Beaumont-Dark : Does my hon. Friend agree that many good things are happening in training in Birmingham, as is shown by the fact that Rover is taking on 1,200 more people with its almost unique 24-hour scheme for building cars? Does my hon. Friend also agree that one of the problems in training has been that unions are loth to have apprenticeships because they often demand starting salaries which are too high for people who are learning? Also, unions think that people who are training are taking their jobs. How are we to create new jobs when that obscurantist attitude persists?
Mr. Nicholls : My hon. Friend is entirely right. If one considers the decline in the apprenticeships system, one realises that, by and large, what killed that system off was union pressure to pay apprentices virtually the same rate as qualified people. The good thing about that is that in recent years, under this Government, ways of obtaining training other than traditional apprenticeships have been devised. That is good news, and it underpins the good news to which my hon. Friend referred a moment ago.
Mr. Fatchett : Is not the real decline in apprenticeships in the west midlands a direct result of the Government's policies on training? Has not the 100 per cent. decline in apprenticeships over the past 10 years led to skill shortages in the engineering industry in the west midlands? It is clear from the Minister's answer that the Government have been concerned with quantity and not quality. That is why so many firms in the west midlands engineering industry are looking for skilled workers. The Government have failed young people and the engineering industry in the past decade.
Mr. Nicholls : Virtually nothing in what the hon. Gentleman says accords with the facts. He bemoans the fact that in his constituency firms are looking for skilled workers. We can accept it from him that under a Labour Government they would not be making that search because there would be no possibility of offering jobs. The hon. Gentleman's position would be a great deal more credible if every training initiative that the Government have launched, such as employment training, training and enterprise councils and the youth training scheme had not been attacked and denigrated by the Opposition. That is their contribution to training and it is a thoroughgoing disgrace.
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Job Clubs
4. Mr. Ashby : To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many job clubs have been established in the United Kingdom.
The Minister of State, Department of Employment (Mr. Tim Eggar) : At 28 February this year, there were 994 job clubs in Great Britain.
Mr. Ashby : Will my hon. Friend confirm that more than half the people who enter job clubs find jobs and that in the past five years some 200,000 people have come out of job clubs into jobs? Is not that a good record?
Mr. Eggar : I can, indeed, confirm that. In addition to the 216,000 people who found jobs via job clubs, a further 55,000 have gone into training or some type of full-time education. I recommend that hon. Members on both sides of the House who have not already done so should go and see their local job clubs in action. They are an impressive way of getting people back into jobs.
Mr. Skinner : Is the Minister aware that there is a Westminster job club for people who are after the Prime Minister's job? How many Tory Members, Cabinet Ministers and ex-Cabinet Ministers have joined that job club? Will the Minister be one of those voting for the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine)?
Mr. Eggar : One thing is absolutely certain. Hon. Members on neither side of the House would want to be advised on their job club search by the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Simon Coombs : Does my hon. Friend agree that job clubs in those parts of the country where unemployment is low have a problem dealing with clients who have difficulties with reading and writing? To what extent could increased efforts be made to help people with such difficulties to find the confidence to go out and obtain jobs?
Mr. Eggar : Yes, indeed. This is a growing problem. We have started some 15 pilot job clubs which specialise in helping people with literacy and numeracy difficulties and with difficulties with English as a second language. The preliminary statistical evidence of the results of those job clubs has been that as many people have found jobs from them as from job clubs in general.
Labour Statistics
5. Mr. Allen : To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what is the current total of unemployed in the United Kingdom.
Mr. Howard : In March 1990 the level of unemployment, seasonally adjusted, in the United Kingdom was 1,603,600, which is 5.6 per cent. of the work force. The European Community average rate for February, the latest available date, was 8.6 per cent.
Mr. Allen : As the Secretary of State always refuses to tell us when the unemployment level will come down to 1979 levels, does he recall the Prime Minister's remark in 1983 that unemployment would return to 1979 levels in the long run? Is this one of the Prime Minister's long runs which will go on and on and on?
Mr. Howard : I have good news for the hon. Gentleman and I hope that he will share my rejoicing in it. There are
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1.5 million more jobs now than there were in 1979--more than 27 million jobs in total. Will he join me in rejoicing at that figure?Mr. Dunn : Would my right hon. and learned Friend care to speculate on the impact that the high-spending, high-taxing, high-inflation, trade- union-dominated policies of the Labour party would have on employment levels?
Mr. Howard : Unemployment levels would undoubtedly be far higher than they are now, not least because of the one policy above all to which the Labour party is utterly committed--that is, making striking easier. That would undoubtedly have a devastating effect on employment.
Mr. McAllion : Is the Secretary of State aware of the exploitation of the unemployed represented by the growth in private security firms which pay as little as 95p per hour and make overtime of up to 12 hours per week mandatory on employees? Is he saying that that exploitation of the unemployed is a matter for rejoicing? Is not it time that he got off his backside and started to bring the excesses of such cowboys under the control of the law?
Mr. Howard : I do not see how that could be regarded as exploitation of the unemployed. It is important that jobs are available to the unemployed, as they now are to a greater extent than ever before.
Mr. Madel : Can my right hon. and learned Friend confirm that the Government will not interfere directly or indirectly in wage negotiations and that it is entirely up to management and unions to work out settlements to keep the maximum number of people in work?
Mr. Howard : My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is equally incumbent on all concerned to have regard to the long-term consequences of their actions so that jobs are not lost because of excessive settlements.
Tourist Accommodation
6. Mr. Corbett : To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make a statement on the provision of accommodation within the British tourist industry after the introduction of the poll tax.
Mr. Nicholls : There is no evidence to suggest that the introduction of the community charge will have any significant effect on the provision of tourist accommodation.
Mr. Corbett : Does the Minister not understand that
bed-and-breakfast accommodation owners who will have to pay double poll tax if they open for more than 100 days a year will simply shut their doors after 99 days? Does he not understand that that will inhibit the promotion of tourism, especially in our region where it is spread throughout the year? At best, will not it force up bed-and-breakfast charges?
Mr. Nicholls : No, the hon. Gentleman is confusing several matters. The 100-day exemption was introduced as a result of pressure from the tourist industry which wanted such a concession made. At present such a concession can be based only on the views and, if the hon. Gentleman likes, the fears that people have. In due course the evidence will be available and it must be taken into account. I thought that the hon. Gentleman might have been using
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his question as an opportunity to remind the House that business rate bills in Birmingham for 1990-91 have been reduced by just under 30 per cent. on average-- [Interruption.]Mr. Speaker : Order. I hope that we shall not have answers to questions that have not been asked.
Mr. Bevan : Would it not, by implication, do far more damage to those running bed-and-breakfast accommodation if a roof tax were introduced?
Mr. Nicholls : My hon. Friend is entirely right. I suspect that, once again, that is a policy which the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Corbett) and his colleagues will not tell us about today.
Mr. Wallace : May I direct the Minister's mind to another possible and worrying implication of the poll tax for the tourist industry and for other small businesses--the fact that many small business employers will find that they are obliged to attach the wages of many of their employees who have not paid the poll tax? What assessment has the Department made of the impact of that on industrial relations in small businesses and of the administrative burden that it will impose on those businesses, including those in the tourist industry?
Mr. Nicholls : I do not see how a question about enforcement arrangements relating to legislation passed through the House properly arises under this question. However, I must disagree with the hon. Gentleman if he feels that such arrangements would be an inhibition to the tourist industry.
Career Development Loans
8. Mr. Moss : To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many applications have been approved for career development loans.
Mr. Eggar : Since the career development loans became available nationally in July 1988, more than 8,300 people have taken advantage of career development loans to pay for their own vocational training. Those loans had a total value of more than £20 million.
Mr. Moss : After last year's expansion of some 48 per cent. in the career development loan programme, can my hon. Friend confirm that it is due to increase by a further 65 per cent. in the current year? Is that a concrete example of the Government's commitment to increase incentives and opportunities for people to train?
Mr. Eggar : I can certainly confirm that. The programme is an extremely exciting and innovative proposal, which has been widely accepted and taken up. It is a cost-effective way in which people can get additional vocational qualifications to further their careers.
Mr. Rowe : Is not it true that the gradual shift towards people appreciating that training themselves is their responsibility and their opportunity constitutes our best chance of turning the country into one which can compete with our European competitors in training? Will my hon. Friend confirm that the career development loans are just one shot in an armoury, which I hope is well stocked, of measures that will encourage people to take responsibility for their own training?
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Mr. Eggar : Yes. That is also the thought behind the formation of the new training and enterprise councils, which are designed so that local employers can provide the kind of training and enterprise assistance appropriate to the locality. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State recently announced the training credit system to help young people. That is yet another example of the kind outlined by my hon. Friend.
Health and Safety
10. Ms. Mowlam : To ask the Secretary of State for Employment whether he has any plans to extend health and safety protection at the workplace.
Mr. Nicholls : The Health and Safety Commission is responsible for bringing forward proposals for the progressive modernisation of health and safety legislation. Details of the commission's future legislative programme will be contained in its plan of work for 1990-91 and beyond, to be published shortly.
Ms. Mowlam : I thank the Minister for that answer. Obviously we are interested in 1990-91, but we are also interested in the record that went before. Given that the employment medical advisory service has cut the number of doctors from 78 to 47 and there have been 147 deaths in the construction industry, can the Minister tell us whether he is satisfied with the amount of funding that the Health and Safety Executive receives?
Mr. Nicholls : The figures for EMAS arise under a later question, but the hon. Lady asks primarily about funding. In recent years, requests by the Commission under the public expenditure survey have been met in full. How the commission decides to allocate resources in accordance with the sums for which it has asked is clearly a matter for the commission.
Mr. Paice : Rather than extending the already high standards of health and safety provisions in this country, is not it more important to ensure that equally high standards obtain throughout Europe? Those standards should be monitored effectively to ensure that European competition is fair and is not advantaged through exploitation of foreign workers.
Mr. Nicholls : I am sure that my hon. Friend is entirely right. One of the dimensions of being part of the European Community is phasing together approaches to health and safety that may not always be in kilter. We must take that into account and I will bear in mind the warning that my hon. Friend has given.
Mr. Tony Lloyd : Is the Minister aware that the internal review document of the Health and Safety Executive says that even if the short- term recruitment plans for the inspectorate are met it will still be 16 per cent. short of the numbers that it estimates necessary to meet all demands? It states :
"It seems unavoidable that for the foreseeable future the inspectorate will continue to have a considerably greater workload than it can cope with."
In the light of that, how can the Minister hold to the view that he has already expressed to my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Ms. Mowlam)-- that the Health and Safety Executive is responsible for its own budget? Clearly, the HSE did not ask for enough money and, as a result, the Government did not make enough money available to it.
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Mr. Nicholls : I hesitate to say to the hon. Gentleman that he should have read that internal document more carefully, but it is a fair point for all that. The position is exactly as I said, that the bids made by HSE in recent years have been met in full. If the commission feels that, in the light of developments, more money is required, it will put forward that view. For the time being, the position is precisely as I described it.
Training and Enterprise Councils
11. Mr. Favell : To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what measures the Government are taking to encourage donation of funds by companies to training and enterprise councils.
Mr. Howard : The Government are providing matching funding on a pound-for-pound basis against donations by companies and other private sources to training and enterprise councils up to a limit of £125,000 per TEC in the first operational year. In addition, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced in his Budget speech that any individuals or companies that donate funds to TECs to support their activities will be able to claim tax relief on their contributions.
Mr. Favell : Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that companies are responding extremely well to the challenge of setting up local training and enterprise councils? Is he heartened by what has happened so far, and is not that far better than the Labour party's proposal in its recent policy document to set up a national network of quangos at a cost of more than £1,000 million a year?
Mr. Howard : My hon. Friend is quite right. There is a tremendous amount of enthusiasm surrounding the setting up of training and enterprise councils. I pay tribute to the Stockport and High Peak training and enterprise council, in my hon. Friend's constituency. I expect to receive its proposed corporate and business plans next month, and I look forward to that.
Ms. Armstrong : I am sure that the Secretary of State would not want to let hon. Members go away this afternoon without recognising the great concern among TECs throughout the country, particularly those setting up, at the major cuts in the training budget, which mean that they will be unable to carry out work of the quality and in the way that they would like. I particularly ask him to look at the problems in Durham county, where industries say that they will simply be unable to meet the shortfall. Where there are still high levels of unemployment and skill shortages, it will be impossible to deliver the quality and amount of training needed.
Mr. Howard : There are no major cuts, and what the hon. Lady said was entirely wrong. We have already signed contracts with 12 training and enterprise councils, which are now operational and delivering the services and training needed in their areas. This is an extremely exciting initiative, and instead of carping and whingeing, it would be nice, if only for once, if the Opposition were to recognise its importance.
Mr. Anthony Coombs : Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that one of the principal benefits of training and enterprise councils is to allow local business men more adequately to focus the wide variety of training schemes,
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in both the Government and private sector, on the needs of their local areas? Does he further agree that crucial to this enterprise is the ability of the National Council for Vocational Qualifications to rationalise equally the 12,000 different technical qualifications available to the benefit of employer and employee alike?Mr. Howard : I agree with both parts of my hon. Friend's question. Local employers are in the best position to know what training is needed to fill the jobs available in their areas and to match the training with the skills required. My hon. Friend is also right to draw attention to the part played by vocational qualifications in achieving those objectives.
Mr. McLeish : Is not it a pity that the Government have to rely on charity to tackle Britain's skills crisis? Will the Secretary of State admit that, as a result of Government cuts, his training and enterprise programmes are in a state of disarray? Will he come clean and tell the House why, in this financial year, £164 million has been cut from youth training, £40 million from the enterprise allowance scheme and £88 million from employment training? Is not the Government's flagship of training, TECs, likely to head for the rocks soon as a result of insensitivity, investment cuts and sheer incompetence?
Mr. Howard : The hon. Gentleman is talking absolute nonsense. What the Labour party cannot accept is that what it is proposing to achieve by compulsion--increasing employers' contributions to training--we are achieving through voluntary means. That is the great achievement of this Government ; we have seen it happen over the past four years and we are seeing it happen increasingly. I should have thought that Opposition Members would recognise that and pay tribute to it instead of denigrating it as the hon. Gentleman just did.
Tourist Infrastructure, Hexham
12. Mr. Amos : To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will visit the Hexham constituency to assess the tourist infrastructure ; and if he will make a statement.
Mr. Nicholls : My right hon. and learned Friend has no plans at present to visit Hexham. However, my noble Friend Lord Strathclyde has recently met representatives of the tourism industry in the north-east and hopes to pay further visits to that region soon.
Mr. Amos : I am sure that my hon. Friend will enjoy his visit to what is generally regarded as the most beautiful constituency in the country, but will he have discussions with his colleague in the Department of Transport to ensure better access to sites such as Hadrian's wall and Langley castle by improving signposting to those areas and by dualling the A69 west of Hexham? Will he also ensure greater private sector involvement with the Northumbrian tourist board?
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