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Unemployment (Seaside Towns)
16. Sir Teddy Taylor: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will review Her Majesty's Government's plans for dealing with unemployment levels in seaside towns in the south-east. [206]
Mr. Alan Howarth: We will indeed. We cannot accept unemployment at its present level, whether in seaside towns in the south-east or anywhere else. That is why we are already engaged in detailed and urgent work to introduce our new programmes to help the long-term unemployed and get 250,000 young people into jobs. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that his constituents are benefiting from the European programme KONVER II and that they are eligible to benefit from European social funding objective 3. Possibly the hon. Gentleman would regard those as tainted sources.
Sir Teddy Taylor: Is the Minister prepared to be serious and to tell me how much cash has come to Southend, East, as set against the monstrous amount of grants, loans and subsidies going to other parts of the country? Perhaps he should take the issue more seriously. Does he accept that the seaside towns have a real problem of high unemployment? My constituency has unemployment of more than 10 per cent. That creates a great deal of misery and lack of opportunity. Will the Minister be prepared to consider establishing a special study to examine whether there is an equal sphere of public investment? Secondly, should there not be a study of the utter distortion that is created by grants, loans and subsidies that are given to other areas with much lower rates of unemployment?
Mr. Howarth: The funding from the KONVER II programme to the hon. Gentleman's constituency is £105,000. Much more substantially, the hon. Gentleman's constituents are benefiting from single regeneration budget funding of £2.2 million to regenerate the area of Shoeburyness. The hon. Gentleman is right in contending that these programmes must be kept under review, and that is what we shall do. Apart from anything else, we need the most accurate and up-to-date map of unemployment. Much unemployment is concentrated in compact, tightly drawn geographical areas. In those areas, we need to understand as much as we can about the nature of the local unemployment problem.
I shall value the hon. Gentleman's advice, as will Ministers and officials at the Department of Trade and Industry. We shall have much in mind the real and distinctive problems that are suffered by the hon. Gentleman's constituents.
Information Technology
17. Ms Moran: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what steps the Government are taking to agree and publish national targets for training in appropriate IT skills. [207]
Dr. Howells: The development of appropriate IT skills is a clear priority both for young people and adults. We are currently considering whether setting a national target is the most effective way to proceed.
Ms Moran: I wish warmly to respond to my hon. Friend's positive note. I know that national standards will help young people in Luton to obtain access to jobs in future. I commend to my hon. Friend particularly a project involving Luton council and the Luton-Dunstable partnership, which involves IT skills and standards, and which is of particular benefit in helping women in my constituency to gain access to employment.
Dr. Howells: I thank my hon. Friend. I shall examine closely the Luton scheme if she will furnish me with details of it. My hon. Friend is right to highlight the value of information technology skills. It is no exaggeration to say that if children do not have IT skills it is a loss as great as not being able to write or to be numerate when it comes to finding employment in what is becoming increasingly an electronically based economy.
Nursery Vouchers
18. Mr. Lidington: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many nursery vouchers had been issued to parents in England at the latest date for which information is available. [208]
Ms Estelle Morris: At the beginning of this week, some 618,000 vouchers for the summer term had been sent to parents of eligible four-year-olds in England.
Mr. Lidington: Can the hon. Lady say how great an increase she expects to see in the provision of nursery places for four-year-olds in the first year of the new scheme that the Government now plan to introduce?
Ms Morris: Yes. We do expect to see an increase in the number of places available for four-year-olds and we have a target to achieve that by September of next year. The hon. Gentleman must remember that what we now have available is all the money that his Government wasted in expensive advertising and bureaucracy. We intend to put that towards providing good-quality education for four-year-olds.
Mr. Pike: I welcome all that the Minister and my colleagues on the Government Front Bench have said this afternoon about nursery education and the ending of nursery vouchers, but will she say that the Government now recognise the importance of nursery education to our children and that, in due course, nursery education will be included in the standard spending assessment for education?
Ms Morris: We have always recognised the importance of early years education. In fact, many Labour local authorities throughout the country have excellent records in ensuring that the children in their areas receive it. We will, of course, develop plans so that not only will all four-year-olds receive good quality nursery education, but that that opportunity will also be available to three-year-olds.
Business of the House
3.31 pm
Mr. Alastair Goodlad (Eddisbury): May I ask the Leader of the House to give us the business for after the Whitsun recess?
The President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mrs. Ann Taylor): The business for the first week back after the recess will be as follows:
Monday 2 June--Until 10 pm, Second Reading of the Education (Schools) Bill.
Motion on the Northern Ireland (Entry to Negotiations, etc) Act 1996 (Revival of Section 3) Order.
Tuesday 3 June--Consideration in Committee of the Referendums (Scotland and Wales) Bill.
Wednesday 4 June--Until 2 pm, there will be debates on the motion for the Adjournment of the House.
Starting at 3.30 pm, conclusion of consideration in Committee and remaining stages of the Referendums (Scotland and Wales) Bill.
Motion on the Select Committee on the Modernisation of the House of Commons.
Thursday 5 June--Consideration in Committee and remaining stages of the Education (Schools) Bill.
Friday 6 June--Debate on the governance of London on a motion for the Adjournment of the House.
Monday 9 June--Debate on the European Union on a Government motion.
Motion on the Draft Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997 compensation scheme.
Mr. Goodlad:
I thank the right hon. Lady. May I remind her that she said that she would give us two weeks' business, where possible? Can she give any indication of the likely business for the rest of the week beginning Monday 9 June?
We are grateful that the Committee stage of the referendums Bill is to be taken on the Floor of the House. Can the Leader of the House give us a commitment, which she could not last week, that all constitutional Bills will similarly be taken on the Floor?
Can she say--rather more precisely than her right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland did yesterday--when the White Papers on the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly will be published? Does she believe that Parliament's right to amend the legislation following the referendums will be constrained by the results of those referendums or not? Does she agree that the Government's plans to introduce a Scottish Parliament and a Welsh Assembly diminish the authority of the House? Will she undertake to provide more time, if necessary, for the House to reflect on the Referendums (Scotland and Wales) Bill?
Will the Leader of the House provide more than one day for consideration in Committee and for the Third Reading of the Education (Schools) Bill, not least as it is the Governments's intention not to publish that important Bill until tomorrow, when the House will have risen for the Whitsun recess?
Will the Leader of the House confirm that the debate on Monday 9 June will be the pre-Amsterdam intergovernmental conference debate, and that that will
be the first day only of a two-day debate to allow for contributions from hon. Members on both sides of the House who will wish to participate in large numbers?
Will a White Paper or other document be published before the debate on the governance of London on Friday 6 June?
Does the Leader of the House agree that the debate on the modernisation of House of Commons procedures will be a serious one, in which many hon. Members will wish to participate, and that it is most inconvenient that it should be taken at the end of what may turn out to be a late night on the Committee stage of the Referendums (Scotland and Wales) Bill? Would it not be more appropriate to take it at the beginning rather than at the end of a day?
Will the right hon. Lady give time for a debate on the massive increase in political appointments in Whitehall, which is giving rise to increasing concern about the potential politicisation of the civil service by the Government? [Interruption.] The right hon. Lady will wish to compare the number of political appointments made by this Government in Whitehall with those made by the previous Government. It will be a salutary figure, particularly for Labour Members who have come here as Lobby fodder.
We welcome the Government's expression of their determination to set up the Select Committees as soon as possible--an intention which we support. When will the motions to set up the House of Commons Commission and the Select Committees be tabled? In particular, when will the Select Committee on Standards and Privileges be set up? It is clear that there will be a strong desire on both sides of the House to proceed as a matter of urgency, not least in the light of the allegations about the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Sarwar).
Will the Leader of the House please tell us the proposed date for the Budget, and whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer will make a further statement on the Bank of England in the light of the Governor's reported proposal to resign over the proposed changes to the regulation of financial services?
May I remind the Leader of the House that on Tuesday, the advance copy of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's statement, which should have been in the hands of my right hon. and learned Friend the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer by 3 o'clock at the latest, was in fact not delivered until after 3.15? Can the right hon. Lady confirm that she will make representations to her Cabinet colleagues to ensure that such a practice will not recur?
Does the right hon. Lady accept that, following the Prime Minister's remarks at Question Time yesterday, there is now great uncertainty about the Government's proposed windfall tax, and will she confirm that it is the Government's intention to allow time for a proper debate in the House on that matter in advance of the Budget, so that some of those uncertainties can be resolved? [Interruption.] Watch this space.
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