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Mr. Alun Michael (Cardiff, South and Penarth): Does my hon. Friend accept that this matter has been debated a great length, and that there is a danger in making a test of a percentage the touchstone for the involvement of business? If the amendment were not carried, I would not want my hon. Friend to imply that the involvement of business would be any less important. Proportions can become a straitjacket. I think that everyone who has spoken on this topic over recent months has agreed with my hon. Friend's point that there is a need for business to be fully engaged and an important part of the council.
Mr. Rowlands: I accept my right hon. Friend's point. However, he probably understands and shares the view that we have a cultural tendency not to bind business into education structures. I am being rather modest in my observations in that respect, but let us consider the composition of the original education and training action group for Wales. It was dominated by the education and further education sectors, and its first report reflected that. My right hon. Friend will remember that it was as a result of the protest that followed that amendments were made to quotas to make the group more attuned to the needs of industry and employment. I believe, therefore, that that danger is present. I accept that there is a problem with prescribing, but I believe that we must send a message, loud and clear, that we want business, manufacturers and industry to be passionately and fully involved.
I come to the amendments dealing with regional structure. Once again, there is no structure below the NCETW set out in the Bill. We have no local skills councils, because we are awaiting the National Assembly's view on the role of the regions. No doubt, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Wales will tell me that we must not be prescriptive and that the right word to have is "may", as in "we may set up committees or regional offices". However, the first question asked in a glossy TEC paper that arrived in our post only this morning is:
- Will the new National Council have Regional Offices?
- It is intended that four regional offices will be established across Wales. These will work closely with the local CCETs--
- These offices will have committees which will advice the National Council on regional policy issues related to skills, education and training.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will accept my amendments. I am the last person to suggest a new quango, but, a new maxi-quango having been created in the form of the NCETW, I assume that there will have
to be mini-quangos below it to deliver its programmes. Maxi-quangos always give rise to mini-quangos, so, if we are to have mini-quangos, I suggest, first, that they encompass the people who have to deliver training--employers--and secondly, that they be regional bodies so that they can serve communities broader than local authority districts, which are often too small to deliver many of the programmes. I believe that there is a case for a regional structure, so why not put it in the Bill, especially as glossy TEC magazines tell us that the decisions have already been taken?Training is vital to the future economic development of communities such as ours, but it has been the Cinderella of the system. We have to make it work and achieve our aims for the 21st century. I can think of no better way of spending objective 1 money than to make the Bill work and, by so doing, create more opportunities and a more diversely skilled community and society than we have now.
Mr. Ian Bruce (South Dorset): As I am sure the House will be relieved to hear, I rise to speak only briefly. I wish to ask a couple of questions about new clauses 6 and 7, which will clearly be passed if the Government use their might.
What assessment has been made of the costs to the taxpayer of the plans, both in the Welsh Assembly and in the national council? Recently, hon. Members will have looked over their local council's best value plans. My local authorities appear to spend half their time creating plans, formulating them and ensuring that they are meeting statutory requirements. When the Government, at such a late stage, decide to insert additional plans in the system, they should tell the House what assessment they have made of costs.
I hope that the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) has been told by Ministers that his valuable contribution will be followed up. He has identified a matter that has already been identified by my local colleges. The Government have decided on a unified strategy for skills training. I do not resile from that. In many ways, it could be a good idea, but the Government have decided, as the hon. Member recognised, that the long-term unemployed for whom the new deal provides and who probably have the fewest skills in the entire work force should not be included in the training for which the councils are planning. In deciding how courses should be set up for new deal people and for people who are not on new deal, colleges will have two paymasters and two groups for which to plan.
The point made about Wales is also valid for England, but I shall not stray into that. I support the hon. Gentleman's argument. He was so keen to tell the House that new deal has been successful. He is clearly a man who can pick up on figures, whereas those on the Government Front Bench, even if they do not listen to the speech, seem unable to pick up on their own statistics.
If the hon. Gentleman considers the group aged between 18 and 24 who are long-term unemployed, and who are currently being helped, in the Government's terms, by new deal, he will discover that the Government currently claim to be helping more than 135,000 people in that group. If the hon. Gentleman looks back two years and examines the corresponding statistics, which are provided by the Government and the Office for National
Statistics, he will find that, before the benefits of new deal were available, that group numbered 115,000. Surely even those on the Front Bench can understand that the present figure of 135,000 represents a rise.The hon. Gentleman identified the need to use the new councils, which, after all, are being set up with taxpayers' money, to help people gain the skills that they require, so that they will no longer be long-term unemployed, and so that they will not be in a new deal scheme that creates more long-term unemployed, instead of getting them out of long-term unemployment. Surely that would be a good thing.
I hope that the Government will listen to their hon. Friend, whose valuable argument I support.
Mr. Hanson: I value our short debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) made some valuable points and I hope to reassure him on some of them.
With regard to co-operation between the new council and the Employment Service, under clause 34 the council may, for the purposes of post-16 education and training, disburse funding itself or, by arrangement with others, or by joint arrangement with others, to achieve its objectives. The latter two categories could, where appropriate and desirable, include the Employment Service in Wales in the manner set out in the new clause.
The new deal programme in Wales, which was highly praised by my hon. Friend, has not been devolved to the National Assembly, but I feel confident that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, the Assembly and I have a shared expectation that the new council in Wales and the Employment Service in Wales will work together closely and productively to ensure that we get the utmost benefit from the work of the new council and from the new deal programme.
The hon. Member for South Dorset (Mr. Bruce) showed clearly that the Conservatives still oppose the new deal and still do not recognise that it benefits people in Wales. Whatever the figures he has brought together, there has been a 61 per cent. fall in youth unemployment in Wales because of the new deal. His criticisms are not strictly accurate.
Mr. Ian Bruce: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Hanson: I will not give way, as time is pressing and the hon. Gentleman has had his opportunity to speak. There has been a 61 per cent. fall in youth unemployment. The hon. Gentleman asked in passing about the figures and the cost of the plans. I cannot give him a specific figure for the plan, which deals with the way in which the council spends the resource, but our total budget in Wales will be in the region of £420 million next year. Obviously, the costs of preparing a plan will fall within that. Again, it is a matter for the National Assembly. The amendments are about the Assembly's powers to deliver those policy objectives in due course.
11.15 pm
I hope that my hon. Friend is reassured by the point on the new deal.
Mr. Hanson: I did not give way to the hon. Member for South Dorset.
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