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12.59 pm
Mrs. Bridget Prentice (Lewisham, East): The Government obviously decided to call this debate in a lame attempt to score points on child benefit, but they scored an own goal. In France--a country not dissimilar in size to ours--four young people stay on in education for every one who does so here. The Government have no right to lecture anyone on education and training opportunities.
I do not want to indulge in petty political point scoring, easy and amusing though it would be. I want to talk, as my hon. Friends have consistently done, about education and training.
Anyone with an ounce of sense recognises how crucial it is to refocus the political agenda on the needs of 16 to 19-year-olds. We have not only a responsibility to do so, but a duty. It is in everyone's interests, and in the interests of our economy to do so.
We need to ensure that young people are fully equipped with the skills and knowledge that they need for the future. As my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham(Mr. Hill) said, Britain has fewer 16 to 18-year-olds in full-time education than any other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development country apart from Turkey. According to a Lloyds bank report published in March 1996, half of UK manufacturing industry, and 40 per cent. of firms, believe that they are suffering from serious skills shortages, and that better skills training is crucial to our country's economic success. Where is it?
Young people in my constituency have vividly expressed to me the low regard in which they hold training. Their view is hardly surprising, given the Government's failure to come up with a high-profile, high-quality training scheme for young people.
Training is seen as a last resort instead of a valuable, worthwhile option for the future. That assertion is, unfortunately, borne out by the facts. The number of young people who left school after year 11 and took network training places dropped significantly from the appallingly low figure of 6.28 per cent. in 1994 to the disgraceful figure of 2.7 per cent. in 1995.
The Tories' youth training programme has failed to equip young people with the skills that they need. Less than half--46 per cent.--of those who start youth training complete it. Despite such results, youth training costs more than £500 million a year. Even more scandalous is the fact that youth training does not require development of skills in the core areas of communication, numeracy and information technology. It is hardly surprising that training is not regarded as a positive option and is not the first choice of many school leavers.
By contrast, Labour intends to bring about a skills revolution that will target young people and which is relevant to them. They must be equipped with basic skills that they can use and build on throughout life. To raise the profile of skill training, we must improve quality standards significantly.
Let us consider what is happening after the Tories' pathetic record of 17 years of inaction. The figures for destinations--what happens after a person has been through one of the Government's failed attempts at training--show a depressing inadequacy in the quality of the training and the data available. What have our young
people done to deserve a Government like this, who ignore their needs and aspirations, their talents and abilities?
In Birmingham, one in three leave youth training for unemployment. What sort of message does that send to our youth? Does it convince them that they have a stake in society? In central London--which my hon. Friends the Members for Streatham and for Dulwich (Ms Jowell) now have to deal with after the shocking demise of the South Thames TEC, in respect of which the Government washed their hands of any responsibility--a staggering 29 per cent. of young people end up on the dole. In my area, which has been clamped on to SOLOTEC, one in four young people end up on the dole. What will happen to their aspirations? Is it any wonder that our youth are alienated from society and their communities?
Even those outcomes are skewed, because they include the 7 per cent. of leavers who end up on another Government training programme. Those youths did not leave training, but were simply recycled. If those figures are taken out, the overall unemployment rate after training across the country is one in four, which is a disgrace. In fact, it is more than a disgrace--it is shameful--and no Government with that record can hold up their head and say that they have done anything for young people.
Early leaving is a particularly worrying and appalling indictment of schemes when the options for young people are so few. Lewisham is not a well-off borough and includes large areas of poverty and deprivation. Under this Government, our youngsters are expected to sink further and further into the mire, but young people are not stupid: they recognise Mickey Mouse schemes when they see them, which is why they vote with their feet. That so many young people leave, despite the absence of an alternative source of income, is a sad and pathetic reflection on the quality of their training.
There is something seriously wrong with the quality of training on offer to young people and with the programme to provide training leading to qualifications. The only people to blame are those on the Government Benches who have turned a blind eye to the prospects and hopes of our young people. To obtain an income, young people are being compelled to enter schemes but, having completed them, only half obtain jobs. Half will achieve qualifications, and one quarter will be unemployed. If Conservative Members had a conscience, they would be thoroughly ashamed.
I want to explain what could happen and to show how, under a Labour Government, the best would be available for all. I look forward to the day when young people actively seek skills training in the knowledge that they will be taught useful skills that will improve their career prospects throughout their life and that there will be continuing opportunities to update and develop their skills. High-quality training and education are not enough. For young people to open their eyes to the opportunities that will be open to them once they have completed their training, there must be a comprehensive, impartial, high-quality careers service. The Dearing report recognised that when it stated:
Despite numerous assertions from all quarters that careers advice is essential for a flourishing economy and a fulfilled, effective work force, Britain's careers service remains the Cinderella service and its possibilities remain under-realised. In the long term, the benefits provided by proper careers advice will mean that the investment pays for itself. If the careers service was able to encourage only 10 per cent. of current drop-outs to attain higher-level qualifications, the monetary savings alone would amount to £35 million a year.
I utterly condemn the Government's implementation of a cut-price market-based system to run the careers service. Their tendering process has shown itself to have little to do with quality provision and everything to do with their obsession with asset-stripping local government.
Labour's Target 2000 programme will refocus and redefine the careers service to recognise its increasingly important role in helping people to maximise their potential. The personal development and guidance service will interview every young person aged between 14 and 18 once a year. That entitlement will ensure that talent is not squandered and that young people are set on the path to fulfilment. We must not let them escape through the net into a wilderness of despair.
I do not understand the Government's complacency. Labour Members are angry about what the Government have done to young people in education and training. We are angry that they have had the cheek to introduce the debate today, when they have done so little to serve our youngsters. I have taught many young people with talents, skills, aspirations and ability. I cannot bear to think that they, and others like them, have been let down so badly by this ignorant and uncaring Government.
Mr. Stephen:
The hon. Lady has complained a great deal about the Government. When will she offer some constructive, costed proposals that the Labour party would introduce if it had the opportunity?
Mrs. Prentice:
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman has just entered the Chamber and did not hear me explain our proposals to provide quality advice and guidance to young people. He can read about them in detail in Hansard.
"Central to maximising achievement and reducing wastage is the provision of expert independent careers education and guidance to young people on their choice of pathways and roles".
The careers service should be seen as the enabler that helps people to make good decisions about their future. The most basic stake that a young person can have in
society is a job. Unequal access to opportunity leads to social division, hinders individual development and squanders talent. The Labour party views an efficient careers service as the essential tool to promote equality of opportunity and to enable individuals, particularly young people, to maximise their potential.
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