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Caroline Flint (Don Valley): May I bring to my hon. Friend's attention a scheme between Doncaster college and Edlington school in my constituency? They provide a bridging course on information technology and I was happy to meet some of the students on it. Half of them had not intended to stay on in education after 16. Is not such collaboration at the heart of the Bill? It should be the norm rather than the exception to the rule.
Mr. Rowlands: There are many good programmes of the type that my hon. Friend has mentioned. I have described one in my community. I hope and believe that such schemes can encourage and extend best practice.
My other hope and prayer is that the new training organisations will answer the catch-22 question in communities such as mine. Every economist that I have read or heard has told me that, for my community to have a modern, 21st century economy, it needs modern training and skill opportunities. We are told that we are desperately short of NVQ 3 opportunities and NVQ 3 trained young people. That is where the future lies. How do young people get such opportunities, given the type of jobs that are available in my community? Not one of them offers the opportunity to obtain work-based NVQ 3 training.
A couple of weeks ago, the Treasury announced a scheme to deal with the mismatch between 1 million unemployed people and 1 million vacancies. When my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer launched the scheme, I took a snapshot of the 115 vacancies that were available at the Merthyr job centre to see whether there was the mismatch that the Treasury talks about. I found that there were vacancies for cooks, cleaners, bar staff and bouncers. There were vacancies for a butcher, a bailiff, mechanics and a hairdresser. None of the vacancies offered a training opportunity of the character that I am told a modern economy requires. I do not deride the people who do such jobs, but that work does not constitute a base for a future training programme that will develop a 21st century economy.
I hope that the new training structures will address the catch-22 questions faced in the valley communities that I represent. Training and NVQs need the same degree of enthusiasm and effort that has been put in to ensuring that school-leaving sixth formers find places at university. For training, we need the equivalent of the Universities Central Council on Admissions. That would enable young people to have better training opportunities than the job market in my community can offer. It would provide mechanisms, training and funding of the kind that we offer to sixth formers who go on to university.
I have not seen such an arrangement in place. Above all, we should use--my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has been responsible for this--the revitalised Employment Service, in which there has been a transformation. It is not an inward-looking organisation that provides the dole and benefit, but an excellent and proactive employment promoter, motivated chiefly by the new deal.
My worry for Wales is that the Employment Service will not be allowed to become an intrinsic part of the process. The best work-based training programmes that are attached to TECs should be linked to the Employment Service. With the new deal, they could provide the training that young people need.
From correspondence that I have had with Welsh Assembly Secretaries, I understand it that some do not want such provisions and are not willing to accommodate the provision in the Bill. I tell the right hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley), who plays a leading part in the Assembly, that the reason for that is that new demarcation lines have been drawn up. Employment services are not within the scope of the Assembly, but TEC programmes and their budgets are. How dare one suggest that the best scheme is not one that is distorted by the demarcation disputes between the Assembly and central Government, but one that would allow the provisions in the Bill to be implemented and would allow the Employment Service to take a leading role in providing work-based training?
Mr. Wigley:
I agree wholeheartedly with the hon. Gentleman about the dangers of demarcation, but does he accept that the Bill contains flexible powers that can be adjusted, as appropriate, in either direction, to avoid the consequences that he has described?
Mr. Rowlands:
Yes. For England the Bill is prescriptive, but for Wales this is a skeleton of a Bill. I believe in the legislative role of the House and the right of Members to play their full part. The Bill contains provisions for Wales, but we do not know what effect they will have, and there are clauses that do not apply to Wales. We know that there will be a set of new clauses on the youth service. Those are the subject of discussion between Ministers, Assembly Secretaries and, presumably, Assembly committees. Why are not Members of this House involved in those discussions?
If there are to be partnership arrangements between Ministers, Assembly Secretaries and Assembly Members, and if Bills such as this are to come to the House containing only skeleton arrangements, we need a different pre-legislative process that involves Members of the House. Are we expected to nod those Bills through the House? Do not we have a right to seek to amend or expand the provisions for training in Wales? I am sorry, but the likes of me will not nod through legislation--maybe I am a bit old-fashioned. I say to my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench, those who serve Wales as well as those who serve central Government, that we will have to devise a new way to prepare and deal with such Bills.
At the moment, no one knows what the youth service provisions will contain. We do not have them in draft; they will be introduced in Committee. Will the Welsh Office Minister who is to introduce them come to us and say that they are the Assembly's provisions, so we should not amend them? Will they be presented not only as a fait accompli, but as provisions that we have no right to amend? I am not willing to accept such a legislative role.
Mr. Richard Allan (Sheffield, Hallam):
I am pleased to say that the Liberal Democrats welcome the Bill, although we have specific concerns that we will seek to raise constructively in Committee. I look forward to Ministers' positive responses to those issues.
We welcome the Bill because it deals with this country's skills shortage and is essential not only for individual opportunities but for the general opportunity afforded by a successful economy, which depends on skills. Although the Bill deals with that problem, and that is what I shall concentrate my remarks on, one might be forgiven, thanks to the efforts of Conservatives in another place, for thinking that the Bill was about grammar schools and sex. I shall try to resist the temptation to pursue that argument.
I was pleased, however, that the Secretary of State, whom I am happy to see still in his place, referred to the question of what constitutes a stable, long-term relationship. He noted that my noble Friend Earl Russell challenged the peer who tried to argue that necrophiliacs are involved in long-term relationships. I showed the Hansard report of that exchange to a friend outside the House who said that it was surreal, which is the best word to describe some of the debates on that issue.
The core aim of the Bill, as I have said, is to make progress in delivering skills to young people in particular, and also to ensure lifelong learning. I reiterate other hon. Members' praise of the work of organisations involved, and I single out the Employment Service for particular praise. As a fellow Sheffield representative, the Secretary of State will understand why I think that the service is important, whether it is based in Moorfoot or anywhere else.
The situation in Sheffield highlights for me the importance of skills. I readily recognise that I represent a more affluent constituency, which is perhaps characterised more by employers than by those seeking work, but the whole area depends on skills. Enterprises cannot function for the benefit of Sheffield and South Yorkshire without the existence of skills throughout the community, and there are chronic skills shortages in Sheffield and the region as a whole. That has been recognised by the awarding of objective 1 status, and we are all involved in making decisions about that now. Objective 1 will, rightly, focus on improving skills, and the new provisions will be essential in achieving that aim.
The problems at Rover also highlight the importance of generating extra skills. This is not a party political issue. When one compares the productivity figures of UK industries with those in other countries, particularly in continental Europe, one finds that a key factor behind the difference are the skills bases of the people employed in those enterprises, who play a part in creating the industry's infrastructure. We must seek ways to avoid problems such as those at Rover occurring in future by making sure that our productivity keeps pace with that of other countries and that we have the best possible industry, not only in manufacturing but in all sectors, so that we are truly globally competitive.
We have a background of failure, and I criticise the previous Government for moving in various directions but never getting to grips with skills shortages. Initiatives such as modern apprenticeships have been useful but they are not enough. There is still too much concentration on
quantity rather than quality. There is too much emphasis on output targets, such as how many people take courses, rather than on the nature of the course.
People in the engineering sector, which is crucial in Sheffield, have told me that it is difficult to deliver engineering courses within the structure set up by the previous Government because they are expensive and require substantial investment in colleges. To put it simplistically, it is easier to deliver a higher number of courses at lower skills levels or for less appropriate skills than to teach the specific skills needed in an area. The incentives have, to a degree, been perverse.
Liberal Democrats also query the incentives in the NVQ system generally and want quality and standards to be the priority. We hope that the Bill will improve NVQs. There is a suspicion, which seems to be borne out, that the incentives are aimed at getting people through NVQ courses and achieving targets of numbers of people rather than focusing on the quality of each course. We hope that during the proceedings on the Bill we will be able to consider the rigour of the qualifications that we are offering.
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