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We deal with those countries, negotiate with them and talk about these things. However, some countries are not willing to do this-it is quite difficult-which is when we have to confront the problem and approach it in other ways. But we are working with many countries and trying to get international agreements. We have managed to do that in terms of paedophilia and child pornography and we need to try to do the same in this area, but it is much more complicated. What is violent extremism and what it is allowable for someone to say involve difficult nuances.
Lord Swinfen: My Lords, are some of these websites a source of information in the battle against terrorism?
Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, I do not think that I want to talk about that.
Lord Harris of Haringey: My Lords, my noble friend indicated that it had not been necessary to use the powers under the Terrorism Act 2006 because of the levels of co-operation and work being done with internet service providers to block access to particular sites. Is that co-operation forthcoming from all the internet service providers operating in this country, or are some providers perhaps less co-operative?
Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, so far, the police have not found it necessary to use what they could use from the Act. That means that they have managed to achieve what they want to achieve. It would be wrong to say that everyone is as co-operative, because they are not. There is one area of weakness that I thought someone might ask me about, and that I am not happy with. It is that because police forces are operationally separate, they have probably not recorded formally as well as they should exactly when they have shut down a site. We are in negotiations about that. When we passed the Act in 2006, we laid down a requirement to make such records, but it has not really been done. The Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism is now talking in great detail to the Association of Chief Police Officers, and the requirement will be met. We need to make sure that records are properly kept because we need to have precise facts to work on. The successes of the police forces are not being registered, and that needs to happen.
Baroness Neville-Jones: My Lords, apropos of the Minister's last remark, did he say how many sites have been recorded as having been shut down?
Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, I would be nervous of giving a figure because it would be meaningless as records have not been kept by all 51 police forces around the country. That is why we are doing this work now to ensure that records are formally kept. We are talking with ACPO about the need to get the precise figures. We need statistics and figures that are meaningful and can be accepted and used within this House.
The Earl of Erroll: My Lords, surely the terrorism websites should be closed down by the Serious and Organised Crime Agency, not by local police forces.
Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, we operate in this country by letting the local police carry on and take those particular actions. SOCA is very closely involved in some of these arenas, as is GCHQ and others, but the police take the action.
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, can we have some advice on websites that instruct people on how to make bombs and are, in effect, sources of information rather than terrorist websites? It is unfortunate that people can just Google the question, "How can you blow everybody up?".
Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, the noble Earl identifies a difficult area. If that is tied to things that are inciting people to take action, it is much more straightforward, but it is very difficult when it is just straight information. One of the reasons I am concerned about the whole area of CBRNE-chemical, biological, radiological and novel explosive-type stuff-is that the availability of such detailed information on the internet is quite worrying. A lot of that-for example, stuff to do with biological-we cannot take off because there is no reason why it should not be there. However, it is extremely worrying because, more than ever, there is access to things that are very dangerous.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch: My Lords, when we use the word terrorism in this context, are we mostly referring to violent Islamism, to the jihadists, or are other sects involved when we use that word, in which case how many and to what extent?
Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, the word terrorism applies to a whole spectrum of people. The greatest threat to our nation at the moment, without a doubt, is al-Qaeda or al-Qaeda-inspired terrorism, but there are a number of others. I would not wish to go through them all, but all of them are monitored and have action taken against them if they are breaking the law.
Asked By Lord Roberts of Conwy
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government & Department for Work and Pensions (Lord McKenzie of Luton): My Lords, by long-standing convention, the Government do not publish unemployment forecasts.
Lord Roberts of Conwy: My Lords, I expected that reply, but I thought that the Minister might have taken advantage of this opportunity to welcome today's figures, because they show a welcome slowdown in the growth of unemployment. However, does the noble
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Lord McKenzie of Luton: Well, my Lords, I am pleased that I did not disappoint the noble Lord in my first response. Like him, I welcome today's figures. The ONS figures show some progress, the ILO unemployment figure has risen more slowly than expected and there are more people in work in October than previously, so there has been an increase in employment. As for young people, that is an important matter and we do not see the challenges of unemployment having yet been fully dealt with, which is why the investment that the Government are making, particularly to help the young and long-term unemployed, is very important. It was announced today that the Future Jobs Fund has created further jobs, bringing the total of that programme up to 95,000 new jobs in our economy.
Lord Tomlinson: My Lords, can I tempt my noble friend to go a little further? There are not just good figures this month; it is the second month in a row when the unemployment figures have shown a trend downwards. Does he therefore welcome the fact that even the television stablemate of the Sun newspaper was referring to the figures today as being good news? This is good news in which we expect everyone to join, rather than continuing the practice of finding the bad news within it.
Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, as ever, I agree fully with my noble friend, but we are not out of the woods yet, which is why we continue to need to invest and why the programmes that the Government have put in place and invested in have to remain in place. If we were to remove that funding now, as some-including the party opposite-suggest, that would be the wrong choice for our country.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom: Does the Minister accept that we must see economic growth of 2 per cent before unemployment starts coming down?
Lord McKenzie of Luton: No, my Lords, I am not sure that I accept that.
Lord St John of Bletso: My Lords, given that unemployment tends to lag behind a recovery in the market and that almost 50 per cent of those unemployed are under the age of 26, what measures are being taken to promote youth training?
Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, a whole raft of measures has been taken to support young people; we will hear about some of them from my noble friend Lord Mandelson when he makes his Statement shortly. We need to put youth unemployment in context. Although it increased by 15,000 over the last quarter, there has been a 14,000 rise in the number of full-time students. If you look at the total of unemployed under-25 year-olds, which is some 943,000, you see that 267,000 of them are in full-time education. There is a shift in this cohort.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Davies of Oldham): It is the Liberals' turn.
Lord Newby: My Lords, does the Minister accept that many people find that the scale of the Government's response to growing unemployment, particularly growing youth unemployment, has been disappointingly small? Does he further accept that the Government would have been a lot better off spending the £12 billion that they frittered away on the temporary VAT reduction-that particularly wasteful and pointless measure-on putting in place stronger measures to deal with youth unemployment?
Lord McKenzie of Luton: No, my Lords, I do not accept that. The fiscal stimulus that the Government promoted has been very important in making sure that families have more money in their budget and that the cash flow of businesses is supported through the deferral of tax payments. Those are just two of the components, quite apart from issues around stabilising the banking system, which is important in giving stability to the macroeconomic framework that needs to underpin the addressing of unemployment. We have made the right policy decisions, in stark contrast to the party opposite, which has always made the wrong policy decisions.
Lord Freud: Given the admirably flexible response of industry in this recession in terms of switching over to part-time employment, does the Minister expect a further lag in employment pick-up as this effect unwinds?
Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, I said at the start that the Government do not issue unemployment forecasts. A range of different factors goes into creating and addressing unemployment. Clearly, the structure of the job market, with perhaps more flexibility and more part-time working, is a benefit as well as one of the challenges.
Lord Snape: My Lords, while these figures are not exactly cause for celebration, would the Minister agree that they represent good news? Would he also agree that unemployment, serious though it is, has never approached the levels reached under the previous Government, when, if my memory serves me right, at least one, and possibly two, members of the party opposite were Ministers?
Lord McKenzie of Luton: My Lords, I absolutely agree with my noble friend. There are now something like 29 million people in employment; at the worst of the 1992-94 recession there were just 25 million and during the 1980s recession there were 23.5 million. The unemployment rate now is 7.8 per cent. In 1992-93, it was 10.7 per cent and, in the 1980s, it was, at worst, 11.9 per cent.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Baroness Royall of Blaisdon): My Lords, at the end of today's Question Time, it may be useful if I draw the attention of the House to some guidance about Questions that
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"If two ... Lords rise at once, they should be ... ready to give way immediately, rather than provoke a shouting-match, which is undignified and wastes time. If the Leader rises, other Lords should sit down at once".
Copy of the SI
Link to the Grand Committee Debate
Moved By Lord Davies of Oldham
Relevant document: 22nd Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, considered in Grand Committee on 9 November.
Copy of the SI
Link to the Grand Committee Debate
Moved By Lord West of Spithead
Relevant document: 23rd Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, considered in Grand Committee on 9 November.
The First Secretary of State, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and Lord President of the Council (Lord Mandelson): My Lords, with your Lordships' permission, I would like to make a Statement on our policies for skills and their role in our future economic growth.
An active government approach to equipping this country for globalisation means making sure that we have the skills that underwrite the industries and jobs of the future. That means skills for the high-tech, low-carbon, more high-value-added sectors that drive the growth that underwrites everything else we want to achieve as a society. These skills are becoming more sophisticated and even more vital.
I also start from the position that skills in our society must always be an individual's ladder up. That is why the skills system also needs to mesh with our university system. We need schools and colleges to make a strong vocational offer that leads to a clear
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Addressing these skills challenges has been the focus of our skills strategy in recent years, and remains the foundation on which our new policies build. We recognise that skills have historically been an area of British competitive weakness. Since 1997, we have made real progress in tackling the economic and social scandal of adult illiteracy and innumeracy. We will not abandon our promise of basic skills for all.
We have eradicated much of the poor quality that blighted our further education system. We have transformed workplace training through Train to Gain, which has trained more than 1 million employees and helped them to get on in work. We have revived apprenticeships, which were allowed to wither away in the 1980s and 1990s. The Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill, which received its Third Reading in this House yesterday, will ensure that this progress is sustained.
This skills strategy builds on the progress that has already been made. It reflects some important decisions and marks a radical shift in the balance of our skills priorities. It reflects the world in which we find ourselves: a world in which higher-level skills have never been more important to our growth, and where the skills challenge has to be tackled within more constrained resources.
We have made some difficult choices. The crisis help that we targeted to help to counter the effects of the recession will progressively be refocused on the skills that we need for a sustained recovery. We have taken three key decisions. First, we will change the focus of our skills system so that a new premium is put on higher skills, especially the technician skills that are the foundation of high-tech, low-carbon industry. Secondly, we will empower learners through more choice and better information to drive up the quality of the system through skills accounts. Thirdly, we will dramatically reduce the number of publicly supported bodies delivering skills policy, working with the UK Commission for Employment and Skills to reduce them by more than 30. These choices will target public investment at the most relevant skills for the future at the highest possible levels of quality and marketability.
The first of these decisions reflects the need for a new focus on the skills that we need in the laboratory, on the high-tech factory floor and in the computer facility. We will create a new, modern class of technicians-something that has long been identified as a gap in our labour market. To build this technician class, we will further expand the apprenticeship system by creating 35,000 new advanced places for those aged 19 to 30 over the next two years. The aim of creating this technician class will also be aided by the new generation of university technical colleges, the creation of which we are supporting.
To turn these apprenticeships into potential ladders to university, from 2011 all apprenticeship frameworks at levels 3 and 4 will be required to have UCAS tariff points just like A-levels, so that holders can apply for and make their way into university if they so choose. We will also commit to the recommendation of Alan Milburn's Panel on Fair Access to the Professions that we should create an apprenticeship scholarship fund that will provide one-off bursaries of up to £1,000 for 1,000 apprentices entering higher education every year.
We will take a more strategic approach to the skills we fund. That means prioritising strategic skills in key industries such as advanced manufacturing, low carbon, digital technologies and biosciences, and in important growth sectors such as healthcare. Our decisions in the next bidding round of the national skills academies programme will reflect these core national priorities.
The second of our decisions is to increase the power of learners to drive up quality in the skills training sector by giving them more choice over where and when they train and better information on how to exercise that choice. To give effect to that greater choice, we will set up new skills accounts which will enable students to shop around for training, backed by good information on how well different courses and colleges can meet their needs. Critically, we are going to more than treble the number of public and private institutions where accounts can be used to over 1,500, creating not only new options for learners, but also a big incentive for providers to design courses that attract students.
The FE sector has made significant strides in improving the quality of its provision over the last decade. Many of our colleges are performing at world-class levels and overall success rates have increased by over 40 per cent in the last 10 years. We will build on this by providing progressively greater autonomy to colleges that demonstrate teaching excellence, but also by cutting funding to low priority and poorly provided courses. We will invest in the courses that employers judge are in line with their needs and requirements.
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