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Mr. Greg Pope (Hyndburn): Cheap.
Mr. Foster: The hon. Gentleman says that my remarks are cheap, but it was rich of the Labour party to hold a press conference recently at which the smiling faces did not hide the chasm between Labour Members on child benefit. [Hon. Members: "You should go and join them."] Labour Members say that I should join the Conservatives. I am making the point that the thinking of the Labour and Conservative parties is so similar on some issues that only the Liberal Democrats have distinctive, different policies and a real commitment to explaining how the money for them will be found.
Labour's proposals will be funded by, for example, the removal of child benefit--which as my noble FriendLord Russell said in the other place the other day, is like robbing Peter to educate Paul. Two thirds of the cost of Labour's proposals for Target 2000 would be funded by a windfall tax. We all know that a windfall tax comes only once, and when it has been spent it will not be there for further years. We know what Labour would do in year one, but when the hon. Member for Wallsend (Mr. Byers) winds up, I hope that he will say what his Government would do in year two. It will also be interesting to hear from him how Labour will deliver Target 2000. Normally, politicians make all sorts of promises but fail to say from where the money will come. In this case, Labour has stated neither its intentions nor the source of the funding--just that it will set a target.
The hon. Member for Wallsend will forgive me for reminding him that in a television programme on which he and I appeared yesterday, he was asked whether Target 2000 would be delivered by further education colleges or TECs but was unable to answer.
Mr. Stephen Byers (Wallsend):
For the sake of accuracy, my reply was that we want a diversity of providers, which could include further education colleges, training and enterprise councils, the private sector or employers in the workplace. We will not be prescriptive. We want quality provision, from wherever it might come.
Mr. Foster:
I am sure that the House is grateful for that detailed clarification.
Mr. Andrew Rowe (Mid-Kent):
I declare an interest as a trustee of Community Service Volunteers, which is a major provider of training for youngsters with special needs in particular. As my hon. Friend the Minister has probably been briefed, I have on behalf of CSV been locked in a battle with his Department for six or seven months because of the inadvertent damage done by the Government to voluntary sector providers. My hon. Friend will be relieved to know that I intend to glance at that subject only tangentially today.
We are talking about boys and girls, men and women--not just about figures and percentages. It is important to recognise that--as the hon. Member for Oldham, Central and Royton (Mr. Davies) said--an increasing number of 16 to 18-year-olds are damaged people. The number of pre-16 exclusions is growing at a worrying rate. If one is sufficiently damaged, one cannot learn anything. Twenty per cent. of 16-year-olds do not achieve even level G, which is the average of an 11 or 12-year-old, in their English or mathematics GCSEs--which means that something like 200,000 youngsters are excluded from hope.
That is a form of robbery. The proposition that people should be forced by law to spend five days a week for about eight months a year for 11 years of their lives under compulsion and emerge with absolutely nothing is a scandal. It is no use viewing that in isolation. The tax system, for example, should be rethought to encourage household stability. Primary schools should teach reading, writing and numeracy linked to information technology.
One of the most scandalous features of the education system has been the extraordinary resistance for a long time by the educational establishment to the
Government's long-overdue reform of making schools publish their examination results. Now that that is done, we have a powerful instrument to single out schools that appear not to deliver the goods. It is reasonable to ask them the reason. It may be that a school's intake is of such difficulty that it requires additional resources to meet its obligations, but it is not right that a school should be allowed to get away with poor results. I welcome the Government's tightening up of the inspection system, but I urge my hon. Friend the Minister not to fall victim to something that has done more damage to this country's education system over the past 40 years than anything else--taking the fashion in teaching at the time and forcing it on every teacher and school.
As anyone who has ever taught knows, the fact is that different teachers teach in different ways and get results by differences of personality and technique. Some will teach by talking and talking, and do it very well and with great success. Others will teach in small groups and do it very well and with great success. It should be for teachers as professionals to choose how they deliver results. It should be for the Government to demand that those results are delivered.
I sometimes wonder what schools ask of teachers at their annual appraisals, because there are far too many teachers who started on a weak wicket, have been allowed to deteriorate and are now delivering a standard of teaching that demoralises them. They know that they are not enjoying it or doing it well, and that they need to be recovered.
It is also important to remember that self-respect for young people is essential. If a significant number of young people cannot earn that self-respect through work--as is likely to be the case for a considerable time still to come, however well the economy performs--they should be able to earn it through service to others. I have urged that for years, and I am disappointed--actually, I am ambivalent--to read that the Labour party will bring in a form of community service, and that it will be benefit-plus. As I understand the proposition, instead of saying to young people, "If you do voluntary work, you put your benefits at risk," it will state--as I have urged for many years--"You should get a slight enhancement of any benefit to which you are entitled while you are doing worthwhile approved voluntary work, because of what it does for you." I am sorry that I have failed all these years to persuade my party to make a commitment like that. If the Labour party has stolen clothes that we have refused to pick up off the bank, I can say only that I am also sorry about that.
Many young people in the 16 to 19-year-old age group have come from the type of household and home that has given them absolutely no model of how to create a stable household of their own. It is tremendously important for us to prepare young people for marriage, for setting up a household and for household responsibilities. There is huge scope for making use of concerned adults as voluntary mentors. We should try to do that.
I also believe--this is the only point at which I revert to my long battle with the Department--that the Government should value established teams, which have a fine record of results in working with people who present particular difficulties, and that everything should be done to improve their position. The current position, which I agree has happened inadvertently, is that they have been
put at huge financial risk by the way in which changes in training for hard-to-train youngsters have worked out in practice.
I very much admire, respect and welcome the fact that the Government have begun to eliminate a number of the old boundaries. Nothing could be more expressive of that than the combination of the old Department of Employment with the Department of Education and Science. There have for far too long been artificial barriers between the academic and the vocational routes into training and into employment.
The development of the national vocational qualification has been an enormous success. I take issue with my right hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden(Dame A. Rumbold) in one respect. I believe that employers are quite rapidly beginning to recognise its value, and they are not nearly as confused as she suggested. It is very interesting that 90 per cent. of employers are prepared to employ on the basis of an NVQ gained in a different workplace. That says a great deal for NVQs, although I should tell her that they are still much too complex and that the assessment, which was quite properly done with tremendous care so that it would be credible against other academic routes, has gone over the top.
We should not pull up everything by the roots again. Many young people have good stories to tell about youth training, for example. We should go for incremental change. I believe that the Labour party's proposition of calling everything by new names and starting it all again from scratch--the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) suggested the same thing--is a mistake. We have spent far too many years pulling things up by the roots, giving them different names and confusing young people, employers and teachers. For goodness' sake, let us try to get them to grow incrementally.
We should also be careful not to let the school agenda dominate. What are the real-life goals of many of the youngsters who re-sit GCSEs and expect to get a very low grade, if they succeed in getting any grade? Many of them would be very much better occupied out there in the workplace. I believe that we undervalue the self-confidence, the communication skills and the other enhancements that 16-year-olds get from their Saturday job in Tesco. Those are important, too.
As the debate has shown, the need for action is urgent. By 2001, only 11 per cent. of jobs are likely to be unskilled or semi-skilled. Some 4 per cent. of graduates are unemployed, whereas 16 per cent. of the unskilled are unemployed. Self-employment has almost doubled since 1979, and part-time employment has increased by almost 75 per cent. I am delighted that the Under-Secretary of State for Social Security, my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Mr. Mitchell), is on the Front Bench, not only because I know that he is interested and committed to this issue but because it is terribly important that the Department of Social Security takes part in this debate.
I give my hon. Friend the Minister one suggestion. It is high time to alter the pension rules. It is absurd that it is so difficult for older workers to cut back gradually. A great many people in their 50s would very much like to be able to work three days a week and to have a job share or something similar but cannot do so because, if they did, they would put their pensions at risk.
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