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Mr. David Shaw (Dover): They have higher unemployment.
Mr. Blunkett: So I presume that the higher the unemployment figure, the more people stay on in education. If that were true, at the height of the Conservative-engineered recession in the early 1990s, our nation would have had some of the best figures for those staying on. The number of those staying on at 16 fell last year. I assume that there is a corollary and that because the Government have made up work make schemes and are now prepared to cut them, we will see an increase next year in the number of young people staying on in full-time education.
Mr. Shaw: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Blunkett: I certainly will because I would love to be enlightened on this intellectually robust point.
Mr. Shaw: When one compares France with the United Kingdom, surely one of the key points is that a young person in France stays unemployed for 22 months whereas, on average, a young person in the United Kingdom is likely to get a job after nine months. Is not one reason why the French young are so desperate to stay on in any form of education possible the fact that the minimum wage has prevented them from having opportunities for employment?
Mr. Blunkett: Intellectually, this would be a useful argument if it were not for the fact that in America, which
is used as the exemplar of right-wing market economics, there has been a minimum wage and it has not affected the number of young people obtaining jobs.
Mr. Shaw: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Blunkett: No, because the hon. Gentleman's greatest contribution in the debate about France and Britain was to suggest that the harbour in Dover should be given away to the French. I suppose if proximity to France had enlightened the hon. Gentleman, he would have made a better contribution today.
Mr. Shaw: The hon. Gentleman has tunnel vision.
Mr. Blunkett: I like that joke about me having tunnel vision. That was very amusing and I will set my dog on the hon. Gentleman.
What about the targets that the Government set themselves? What about the 80 per cent. of young people who are to gain intermediate skills such as the GNVQ intermediate or five GCSEs at grades A to C by 1997? When it became clear that the Government were nowhere near that, the goalposts were changed and the target was set for the year 2000. It was also slightly adjusted and was made 85 per cent. for 19-year-olds. How are we doing at reaching that target? So far, we have managed to get two thirds of the way.
We have seen a similar shortfall in the number of adults receiving advanced qualifications below degree level such as the GNVQ advanced, BTEC national or A-levels. Britain has a figure of just over 40 per cent., whereas the Japanese attained the targets set by Britain 10 years ago. The Germans have exceeded the target and the French have a target of 80 per cent. by the year 2000, not 60 per cent., which is what we have set ourselves.
It is a sorry picture. There are targets that cannot be met and the Government are cutting back at the very time when those targets need to be attained. We have seen cuts in not only the training budget but in further and higher education. Fancy cutting two thirds of the capital budget over the next three years for the further education sector at the very time when we should be encouraging more young people to go into full-time education. Are we doing that? A few moments ago Conservative Members committed themselves to encouraging young people not to go into full-time education but to get the cheapest job possible on the ground that the more people who go into full-time education, the more desperate they must be. What a pathetic state we have reached.
Mr. Roy Beggs (East Antrim):
The hon. Gentleman referred to cuts. Will he join me in condemning the 25 per cent. cut-imposed on the action for community employment scheme in Northern Ireland? Does he agree that it is unmanageable and irresponsible to expect those cuts to be made by 31 March this year? Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Government would serve the community and the long-term unemployed better by increasing funding for those community projects and by properly supervising the 240 of them across Northern Ireland, to ensure that the skill level of the long-term unemployed is raised and that the necessary community services provided for the needy can be maintained?
Mr. Blunkett:
I agree with the hon. Gentleman. The link between providing real experience, community skills and training is critical. As I shall show, the Government
The OECD recently put us at 18th out of 25 in the skills attained by our people as a whole. The World Competitive Forum put us 24th in terms of people skills and 35th in educational attainment. Again, Conservative Members are having a little chuckle. I do not think that there is much to laugh at.
Mr. Ian McCartney (Makerfield):
We are not talking about everybody's children.
Mr. Blunkett:
Yes, as my hon. Friend reminds me, some people's children are doing all right because they can be supported and encouraged. We are talking all the time about helping those who are least able to help themselves. That is what one-nation Britain is all about. It is not just about looking after an elite and patting on the back those who happen to have had private education or who can succeed because they are funded through higher education. It is about ensuring that we look after those with no prospects such as the 700,000 to whom I referred earlier, the 280,000 under-25s who have been out of work for over six months, the 443,000 adults who have been out of work for over two years and the 750,000 who have been unemployed for more than a year. Those are the issues that we should be debating. Tonight's debate is important not just because it is about the future of Britain's economy, crucial though that is, but because it is about the well-being of individuals. If we are to have social cohesion as well as economic prosperity, we need to provide opportunities for every young person so that they are not on the streets or lying in bed but in work, doing work.
There are some important schemes. We agree with the modern apprenticeships and the accelerated apprenticeships. The programme to encourage firms to become investors in people is crucial, but instead of 8 per cent. we should aim for 80 per cent. of firms to become involved in that. We should encourage partnerships and develop the best of business partnerships from school through to work with local authorities. That has been done in Leeds by Leeds city council, the Benefits Agency and the training and enterprise council. We need positive moves to use the resources at our disposal to encourage and support people in their endeavour to find work. We are not talking about punishment or the jobseeker's allowance, which will be debated in the House tomorrow, or about threatening people or introducing a project work scheme that is deliberately and calculatedly designed to provide a shoddy and unacceptable alternative.
On 10 March last year the community action programme was supposed to be the great programme for the future. On that day, the Secretary of State's predecessor, the then Secretary of State for Employment, said--this was one of his most positive moves--
One briefing note was entitled:
The advice given on the project work scheme was:
I shall examine that advice in terms of the £98 million that was spent in 1994-95 on the community action programme, and compare it with the advice in the same briefing note to Ministers, which describes the programme as "community action closure". Under the heading,
That note reveals that finding a cheaper alternative was the most important priority and that the prime decision to cut community action was being taken not because the programme was not working--the Government proclaimed that it was and said last March that they would expand it--but as a straight budgetary cut.
"Over the next three years we are planning to extend the successful community action programme, which provides work experience and a route back to jobs for long-term unemployed people. It was due to end next year but we shall now provide 40,000 opportunities a year for the next three years."
That lasted only eight months. The Budget then overtook it and the Government changed their mind and abandoned the scheme. We must examine why that happened. In putting forward the project work scheme, the Government claimed that it would represent value for money and be a new idea. They said that the pilot schemes would provide a better alternative than schemes previously in place, and that the project work scheme would be a boon for those who had been out of work. It does not look that way when we examine the briefings given to Ministers.
"Briefing for Ministers on the Budget. Requiring activity pilots: lines to take."
"This approach is new and will not be cheap. We do not throw money away on programmes that do not work."
"Questions that Ministers might be asked",
it says:
"Why are you closing community action when it has been such a success?"
and advises that the Minister answer:
"You will be aware that all Government Departments' budgets have been under very close scrutiny this year. It was quite clear that money would not be available for community action to continue at current levels. It was generally accepted that community action could not remain viable as a national programme if places were cut further, and closure, leading to the provision of its cheaper alternative, was seen as the preferred option."
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