House of Commons Hansard Debates for 11 Feb 1992

Hansard

House of Commons

Tuesday 11 February 1992

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[ Mr. Speaker-- in the Chair ]

Oral Answers to Questions

EMPLOYMENT

Training and Enterprise Councils

1. Mr. Gerald Bowden : To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many training and enterprise councils were operational in (a) March 1990 and (b) January 1992.

The Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Michael Howard) : There were no training and enterprise councils operational in March 1990. The full network of 82 training and enterprise councils has been operational since last October. That has been achieved as the direct result of the enthusiasm and support of key business and community leaders throughout the country.

Mr. Bowden : I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for that reply. Will he join me in congratulating the TECs on the part that they are playing in promoting the local economy? Having in mind my own South Thames TEC in south London, does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the acceptance, success and street credibility of the TECs have been greatly enhanced by the emphasis that they put on the enterprise element of their make-up?

Mr. Howard : I am delighted to respond to my hon. Friend's invitation and I entirely agree with his remarks. The success of the TEC movement is the result of an unprecedented partnership between business leaders and the Government across the country-- [Interruption.] I note that sedentary observation of the hon. Member for Worsley (Mr. Lewis), which no doubt represents the Labour party's true attitude to training and enterprise councils.

Mr. Ray Powell : What financial controls and supervision do the Government exercise over TECs? Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman make a statement on that matter?

Mr. Howard : Money is made available to training and enterprise councils in return for their performance in pursuance of a contract that they make with me. The way in which and the extent to which they perform and adhere to the terms of the contract are carefully monitored. Indeed, complaints are frequently made that too many monitoring requirements are made of TECs.

Mr. Devlin : Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that unit costs and the availability of placements will not be the same for employers in different parts of the

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country? I know that he recently considered this matter at a meeting with the northern TECs, but will he further consider the plight of some regions where costs are slightly higher than in, say, the south-east?

Mr. Howard : I agree with my hon. Friend that unit costs are not always the same in all parts of the country. I hope that he agrees that that does not mean that differences that are difficult to justify should be perpetuated indefinitely. We have a duty to obtain the best value for money for the taxpayer. That frequently means that some of our negotiations are tough.

Mr. Blair : Is not the real problem facing many TECs the fact that their funds are being cut at a time of recession and rapidly rising unemployment? Will the Secretary of State now answer for the record the question that he has consistently refused to answer? How many employment training and youth training places have been cut in the past two years? How many fewer places are there today than there were two years ago?

Mr. Howard : The point that was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, South (Mr. Devlin) related to unit costs. The allegations that have been made by the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) go further and further into the realms of fantasy. We are continuing to deliver the youth training guarantee. We are making sure that employment training is making its full contribution to the aim and guarantee groups for the long-term unemployed. Such comments come a bit rich from the Opposition, when they have opposed each and every training initiative that we have introduced during the past 12 years and when we are spending two and a half times as much in real terms as the Labour Government did.

Unemployment (Leicester)

2. Mr. Janner : To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what is the current level of unemployment in the city of Leicester ; and by what numbers and what percentage it changed in 1990.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Robert Jackson) : In December 1991, unemployment in the Leicester local authority district was 16,421 on the unadjusted basis. During the year to December 1990--the year about which the hon. and learned Gentleman asked-- unemployment regrettably increased by 1,941, or 20 per cent.

Mr. Janner : Does the Minister recognise the terrible burden that increasing unemployment in the city of Leicester and elsewhere places on the people involved and their families? Some of the unemployed are young, some are old and many have never been unemployed in their life. Does the Minister accept the definition that recession is when someone else is out of work, depression is when one is out of work oneself, and the only hope of recovery will be when the Government are out of work?

Mr. Jackson : Of course we understand the difficult position in which unemployment places many people. The hon. and learned Gentleman made an epigram out of it. He picked up the word "depression". One of the psychological problems associated with unemployment is depression, and the range of measures that we have put in

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place to assist unemployed people can help with it. One example is job clubs. I visited one yesterday. They are successful and helpful devices to help people out of the isolation of unemployment. The fact is that 25 per cent. of people who sign on at our jobcentres leave the register within a month, 50 per cent. leave the register within three months and two thirds leave the register within six months ; so there is a flow through the unemployment register.

Industrial Disputes

3. Mr. Knox : To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many days were lost in industrial disputes in the most recent 12-month period for which figures are available.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Eric Forth) : There were 765,000 working days lost in the 12 months to November 1991. This is the lowest total for the same period for more than 70 years.

Mr. Knox : Does my hon. Friend agree that that figure is a vindication of the Government's step-by-step approach to the reform of industrial relations? Does he further agree that the time has come for a period of consolidation?

Mr. Forth : My hon. Friend is correct. Those dramatic figures reflect several things, not least the steady and progressive reform that the Government have undertaken in industrial relations. That reform has also given us one of the most successful inward investment records of any country, certainly in the European Community and arguably in the world. Who can dispute the fact that, if the figures were not as I have just announced and if industrial relations had not improved, we could not have attracted our record level of inward investment from across the world? That investment has created many well-paid and well-founded jobs for our people.

Mr. Lewis : Should not those figures be considered alongside the 352 million lost days which have been engineered by the Government since 1979?

Mr. Forth : I do not know what the hon. Gentleman means, but I regret that, as ever--and typically of Labour Members--the hon. Gentleman seems to glory in gloom and despondency in identifying the more negative aspects of things, rather than looking at the positive. As a country, how can we expect to attract inward investment and have the confidence of overseas investors if we hear such remarks from Labour Members?

Mr. Dickens : Do not the figures also herald the demise of the flying pickets, rent-a-mobs, people with crowbars, people who fire ball bearings at horses and place cheesewire across the throats of horses and people who drop concrete slabs off bridges, all of which would stop inward investment into the United Kingdom? Those days have gone, thanks to our measures.

Mr. Forth : Those days have gone only so long as a Government are in power who are determined to continue a regime of common sense and reasonable and balanced industrial relations. If there were ever a Government who had a different view of industrial relations and a different

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relationship with the trade unions, who knows whether events such as my hon. Friend mentioned might not occur again?

Mr. Beggs : Does the Minister agree that, as Northern Ireland has the fewest days lost through stoppages or industrial action and is governed by the same industrial relations legislation as Great Britain, it should be in a special position to attract inward investment?

Mr. Forth : Yes. I welcome the fact that the hon. Gentleman has brought to the attention of the House and of the world outside the fact that Northern Ireland has so much to offer as an area for investment, both from the rest of the United Kingdom and from beyond. That, together with the strenuous efforts made by everyone in Northern Ireland at local and provincial levels, means that we can look to the future with some confidence, and I am delighted to endorse what the hon. Gentleman said.

Holloway Employment Office

4. Mr. Corbyn : To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what is the latest available figure for registered unemployed and recorded vacancies at the Holloway employment office and jobcentre ; and what was the equivalent figure for January 1987.

Mr. Jackson : There were 11,978 unemployed claimants and 32 jobcentre vacancies remaining unfilled in the Holloway area in December 1991, on the unadjusted basis. That compares with 13,221 unemployed claimants and 241 unfilled vacancies in January 1987. The hon. Gentleman will be delighted to know that unemployment in the Holloway area has fallen since 1987.

Mr. Corbyn : Unemployment may well have fallen since 1987, but it has increased a great deal in the past year. Will the Minister explain what he is going to say to the people of the Holloway area who find themselves in the unenviable position of having the jobcentre with the largest gap between the number of vacancies and the number of registered unemployed? There are just 32 vacancies. Will he assure the people of that area that there will be an increase in employment opportunities and an end to the public spending cuts in the area, and will he guarantee the continuation of the job club, which is threatened with closure?

Mr. Jackson : I shall certainly look into the position of the job club. Jobcentres are not the only places where vacancies are available. The fact is that last month the increase in the total number of vacancies notified to jobcentres throughout the country was the highest on record.

Mr. Leighton : The Minister will know that the Holloway area includes a prison and that the admirable Apex Trust works in that area. Is he aware that the chief inspector of prisons, Judge Tumim, has deplored any possible demise of the Apex Trust, that the Archbishop of Canterbury is raising private funds for the trust and that the Secretary of State received an all-party delegation to ask for a rescue package for it? What assurances can the Minister give the House that the valuable experience of the Apex Trust over 27 years is not to be destroyed?

Mr. Jackson : I know from my personal experience of the valuable work that Apex has been doing. The

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administrator looking into the affairs of the Apex Trust will come forward with proposals, and when we see them we shall consider them. At this stage, we are not in a position to say anything about them.

Strikes

5. Mr. David Evans : To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many days were lost in strikes in the 10 years prior to 1979 and the 10 years since.

Mr. Forth : There were 72 million working days lost in the 1980s, nearly one third of which--22.3 million--were lost in the 1984 miners' strike alone. The total for the 1970s was 129 million, nearly twice that for the 1980s.

Mr. Evans : I thank my hon. Friend for that reply and for those sensational figures. Does he agree that that improvement has occurred because we--the Government--have given the unions back to their members ? Does he further agree that the Labour party wants to sign up to the social chapter only in order to regain its power by having beer and sandwiches at No. 10 ? Is that what the past is all about--the 156 Members sponsored by unions who are turned on by that prospect ?

Mr. Forth : I am grateful to my hon. Friend for pointing out what is blindingly obvious to Conservative Members but escapes Opposition Members-- our reforms have been to do with giving power to individual trade union members and restoring accountability and responsibility to trade unions and their leaders. Much though my hon. Friend may dream about the days of beer and sandwiches, I should have thought that the Opposition were so besotted with Europe that it would have to be cafe and croissants, if that change ever came about.

Mr. Speaker : I call Mr. Dennis Skinner. Happy Birthday !

Several Hon. Members : Happy Birthday.

Mr. Skinner : For the first 10 years of the Government, the cry that used to come from the Dispatch Box was that the economy was in a mess because of strikes by workers. Who is causing the slump now ?

Mr. Forth : I do not recall any such incidents, but the economic difficulties that we inherited between 1979 and 1980 were indisputably due to the winter of discontent, which was a direct result of the relationship between the then Labour Government and the then trade unions. We now have a different trade union movement and a different Government, with the result that the figures show an all-time record of peace in industrial relations. That is the difference.

Citizens Charter

6. Mr. Riddick : To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make a statement on how the citizens charter will affect matters relating to his Department.

Mr. Forth : The Department is meeting all the commitments that we made in the citizens charter White Paper. The Employment Service has published the jobseekers charter setting out clearly the high standards of

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service which the public can expect in all its offices. Charter principles are being applied to all areas of the Department's work.

Mr. Riddick : Is not the jobseekers charter further evidence of the Government's clear commitment to improve public services? I notice that the Minister is wearing his name badge. Of course, he is well known to everyone in the House and to many people outside. Will he assure me that my unemployed constituents will no longer be dealt with by faceless bureaucrats but will be dealt with by individuals who are clearly identifiable and that my unemployed constituents will be treated as individuals?

Mr. Forth : I am delighted to confirm that we will do as my hon. Friend has asked. He shows his usual great concern about the level of service given by the Huddersfield jobcentre to his constituents. I assure him that those constituents who seek help from our staff in the Huddersfield jobcentre, and in other jobcentres throughout the country, will find that the charter means that they can identify the people with whom they are dealing because they are wearing name identification badges. There will be targets for waiting times, for answering calls and for the promptness and accuracy of benefit payments and customer satisfaction surveys will be carried out. The charter will give people who use public services the opportunity to judge the quality of the service and to seek redress, if that quality of service is not offered. That is a major advance in the concept of public service of which the Government are rightly proud.

Mr. Harry Ewing : Whatever the citizens charter is or is not meant to do, will the Minister assure us that it is certainly not meant to replace his Department's statutory obligations in relation to the tragic accidents with which the Health and Safety Executive should deal? I am grateful to the Minister and to his Department for the speed with which they dispatched members of the Health and Safety Executive to the scene of the tragedy in my constituency at BP Grangemouth yesterday. Sadly, one of my constituents lost his life in that tragic explosion. Will the Minister ensure that his Department keeps me advised of all developments relating to that sad event?

Mr. Forth : I join the hon. Gentleman in expressing our sorrow at that tragic loss. Regrettably, too many people lose their lives in the construction industry which, as is well known, is one of the most hazardous industries. Together with the HSE, we are constantly working to improve safety levels. I gladly give the undertaking for which the hon. Gentleman asks and we will keep him well informed of the findings that emerge from this most recent accident. On that basis, we have asked the Health and Safety Executive and the Health and Safety Commission to consider what contribution they can make to the overall citizens charter initiative to ensure that companies or individuals--whichever are concerned--have the same rights with regard to those organisations as they have with regard to other government and quasi-governmental bodies. That is something that we are keen to see, and I am confident of getting a positive response from the executive and the commission shortly.

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YTS (Eccles)

7. Miss Lestor : To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will state the number of youth training scheme places available in Eccles.

Mr. Jackson : Management of youth training in Eccles is the responsibility of the Manchester training and enterprise council. In the current year, the training and enterprise council has a youth training budget of £16.1 million, and about 7,430 young people are currently in training.

Miss Lestor : Will the Minister cast his mind back to the letter that he wrote to me last October--a soothing reply to the representations that I had made to him--pointing out that the Salford careers service, which covers my constituency, had forecast a shortfall of between 400 and 450 YTS places? As I say, his reply was most soothing. May I inform him, as he has not answered my question, that the same careers service says that nothing has changed and that the same number of young people will not get YTS places, that many of them are fed up with turning up, only to be told that nothing is available and that the continued recession and closures mean that hundreds of them will have nothing to do?

Mr. Jackson : We followed up the representations that were made by the hon. Lady and by others on that point, and the regional offices of the Department of Employment have been in negotiation with TECs to try to establish the extent to which they need additional resources to meet the YT guarantee. That has taken place throughout the country and has led to substantial additional resources being provided. I shall be happy to reconsider the position in Manchester and Eccles, although I know that it is being carefully considered.

There is an issue, which the hon. Lady must recognise, involving the careers service figures. There has been a great national exercise, co- ordinated by the careers service nationally and by my Department, to establish the true position. It is accepted by the careers service that the figures are rather crude, that they consist of people who register an interest in YT and that there are various problems about counting those people as actual demands for YT places.

Employment Action (Basildon)

8. Mr. Amess : To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he has any plans to visit employment action training services in Basildon to discuss the quality of provision.

Mr. Jackson : Although we are carrying out an extensive programme of regional visits, neither my right hon. and learned Friend nor myself, alas, plan to visit Basildon in the immediate future. I know that employment action is operating well in Essex. The Essex training and enterprise council is to be congratulated on its efforts to get the employment action initiative off the ground so quickly.

Mr. Amess : Is my hon. Friend aware that I opened J. and J. Training Services in my constituency last week and that its programme is already providing an environmental study centre at Basildon zoo, a garden for St. Luke's hospice at Basildon hospital and recreational facilities for the Charitable Printers Trust and that it is restoring old

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churches in my constituency? Does my hon. Friend agree that such a programme not only provides high-quality training but helps to enhance life in our local communities?

Mr. Jackson : I agree with all those points, and the Essex TEC is to be congratulated on its success in getting those programmes off the ground. Particularly important is the contribution that EA will make to ensure that unemployed people are given an opportunity to keep their work skills and work records up to date.

Labour Statistics

9. Mr. McAllion : To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what has been the increase in United Kingdom unemployment during the past 12 months.

Mr. Howard : United Kingdom seasonally adjusted unemployment rose by 703,700 in the year to December 1991.

Mr. McAllion : Is the Secretary of State aware that the management of the Albacom factory in Dundee are taking advantage of the circumstances of mass unemployment by sacking more than 100 members of the work force for the crime of taking industrial action, within the terms of the Government's employment laws? Will he join me and civic and religious leaders in the Dundee area in condemning such management action as an affront to natural justice? Will he also explain why we have one of the few remaining Governments who still refuse to give legal protection to workers when they take legitimate and justified industrial action?

Mr. Howard : I am not aware of the circumstances of the particular case to which the hon. Gentleman refers. If he will write to me about it, I will look into it. It has always been the law in this country--including under the previous Labour Government, even when the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) held my office--that if people broke their contract of employment and went on strike, it was legitimate for them to be dismissed. That has always been the position, but I shall look into the case to which the hon. Gentleman refers.

Sir Michael Neubert : Does my right hon. and learned Friend share my concern about the disproportionate impact of unemployment on the construction industry, which it is estimated will have lost 250,000 building operatives, some perhaps never to return? Will he do all he can, through the Construction Industry Training Board, to ensure that an adequate supply of skill is available to meet the demands of recovery in the longer term?

Mr. Howard : Yes, I certainly share my hon. Friend's concern. The Construction Industry Training Board is doing an excellent job in difficult circumstances. It is doing all that it can to ensure that skilled people will be available to meet the demands that will undoubtedly be made on the construction industry as the economy recovers from recession.

Mr. O'Hara : Can the Secretary of State offer any advice to the daughter of a constituent of mine who has recently become an unemployment statistic? She is a highly qualified research scientist whose contract, funded by the pharmaceutical industry, has come to an end. Having signed on and said that she was looking for a job as a research scientist, she was advised that she should think

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again. When she asked what she should think again about, she was advised to train for office work. What advice would the Secretary of State offer that young lady, apart from consulting the job seekers charter?

Mr. Howard : A wider range of help is available for unemployed people now than ever before. Those who work extremely hard in our jobcentres give the best advice available to individuals who come in. Unemployed people now have individual interviews and help in preparing a back-to-work plan. Those who advised the hon. Gentleman's constituent no doubt knew the circumstances of that locality far better than I do.

Mrs. Currie : Does the Secretary of State agree that, to obtain a balanced view, we must consider not only unemployment but employment and self-employment, which grew steadily during the 1980s under the Government and is set to grow further in the 1990s under the same Government? Is he aware that, when I asked about the growth in employment in south Derbyshire recently, I was told that figures were available only until 1989, that they are collected only once every six years and that figures for self- employment are collected only once every 10 years? Surely that is not good enough.

Mr. Howard : I rather agree with my hon. Friend. We hope to make those figures available, on a localised basis, much more regularly and frequently in the future. However, national and international figures are available and they show that a greater proportion of this country's work force is in work than in any other European Community country except Denmark. We do not hear much about that from the Opposition.

Mr. McLeish : Will the Secretary of State come clean and say why his Government have the worst jobs record of any post-war Government in Britain? Why have 2.4 million manufacturing jobs disappeared since 1979? Why has unemployment risen by 1.45 million since 1979? Tory polices do not work and the tragedy is that, in Britain every month, 30,000 people join the dole. When will he do something about that deplorable record?

Mr. Howard : I hope that the hon. Gentleman is aware of the fact that unemployment has been rising in most European Community countries and that it is higher than it was a year ago in every EFTA and G7 country. If he was really concerned about unemployment, he would persuade the Labour party to abandon its minimum wage and jobs tax proposals and its embracing of the European Community social charter, all of which would add hundreds of thousands of people to the dole queues.

Mr. Bill Walker : Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that some of the unemployment has been brought about by the so-called peace dividend? Would he care to contemplate what unemployment in Scotland would be if the bases at Leuchars, Lossiemouth, Kinloss, Rosyth and Coulport were to close and if Rolls-Royce, Yarrow, British Aerospace and other defence manufacturers did not receive work because Scotland was a separatist country?

Mr. Howard : My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point. I am sure that it will be fully appreciated by the people of Scotland when they assess the parties' policies at the election, including the policies of those who

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advocate a lesser or greater degree of Scotland's separation from the rest of the United Kingdom. Those policies and their effects will weigh heavily in the balance.

10. Mr. John Evans : To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what is his estimate of the number of people in the United Kingdom who are economically active, unemployed and not receiving unemployment benefit.

Mr. Howard : In spring 1990, there were 870,000 people in the United Kingdom unemployed on the internationally recognised International Labour Organisation definition, but not included in the monthly claimant count statistics. That compares with 540,000 people in the claimant count who were not unemployed by the ILO definition.

Mr. Evans : Will the Secretary of State acknowledge that that incredible figure does not tell the entire story? Will he confim that if unemployment figures were counted today on the same basis as they were in 1979 employment Ministers would be forced to stand at the Dispatch Box and admit that the number of economically active people who are unemployed in Great Britain today is 3.75 million?

Mr. Howard : No. I certainly do not accept that. I do not see any basis for the figure that the hon. Gentleman advances. It certainly has no basis in the figures that I have just given him in answer to his question. As the hon. Gentleman knows, whenever we make comparisons the figures that we quote are adjusted backwards to ensure that we quote them on a truly comparable basis in all instances.

Mr. Alexander : Since the Opposition, clearly, try to make the worst of the current figures, would it not give a truer picture if we looked at the figures of only five years back? Is it not the case that in the east midlands, my area, for example, unemployment is 30, 000 fewer than five years ago?

Mr. Howard : My hon. Friend is entirely right and I agree with him. Not only do the Opposition always seek to make the worst of the figures, but they would make the figures very much worse if they ever had the opportunity to put their disastrous policies into effect.

11. Mrs. Fyfe : To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many persons are currently unemployed and claiming benefit.

Mr. Howard : On the seasonally adjusted basis there were 2,546,000 unemployed claimants in December 1991.

Mrs. Fyfe : Does the Secretary of State realise that the British people have rumbled him and his colleagues? They know the true level of unemployment. They know about the misery of people who are unemployed, but are not even counted in the unemployment figures because of the way in which the Government have fiddled those figures. Before the Secretary of State rattles on yet again about European figures, our minimum wage policy and our alleged doom and gloom, and as he has proved himself completely unable to say anything constructive, will he today at least ask the Prime Minister to chuck it in now, call an election and let us get on with the job?

Mr. Howard : If the hon. Lady knew what was available to those of her constituents who are unemployed, she would know that we offer a wider range of help to

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unemployed people than has ever been available in this country before. About half of those who are unfortunate enough to lose their jobs leave unemployment within three months. We are doing everything we can to keep that period of time to a minimum. Instead of dwelling on portraying the figures in the worst possible light, she should work with us to reduce that time.

Mr. John Greenway : Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that unemployment across the whole of the European Community is higher than any of us would like? Does he accept that the way to solve the problem is for workers to provide goods and services that are competitively priced? Does he welcome today's news that factory output prices are the lowest for many years?

Mr. Howard : My hon. Friend has correctly identified that it is only by constantly improving the competitiveness of British industry that jobs will be created. We have in place a framework that will ensure that this country is uniquely advantaged to make the most of the opportunities that will become available in the 1990s. As we emerge from the recession that will become increasingly apparent.

Training Programmes

12. Mr. McCartney : To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what representations he has received from the chairmen of the north-west training and enterprise councils concerning the level of funding of training programmes.

Mr. Jackson : My right hon. and learned Friend and I have frequent meetings with TEC chairmen from all parts of the country, in which we discuss a range of issues, including questions of funding.

Mr. McCartney : When the Under-Secretary met the TEC chairman did he apologise for the 97 per cent. increase in unemployment in the north-west since the Government took over? Furthermore, did he give a commitment to replace the 8 per cent. cut in the youth training budget for this year, which is in addition to the 12 per cent. cut last year? Does he accept that, as the TEC chairmen advised him, if that money is not replaced, some TECs will not be able to meet the guarantee of a youth training place in some places in Greater Manchester in Lancashire? Is it not an indictment of this Government that, with the high levels of unemployment, young people cannot get a grant-aided training course?

Mr. Jackson : TECs throughout the country are currently deep in negotiations with the regional offices of my Department. I do not think that it would be appropriate for Ministers to get involved in those local negotiations, least of all from this Dispatch Box. Since the hon. Gentleman mentioned YT in particular, I may say that we are investing £842 million in YT in 1991-92 and the figure for the year starting in April is £851 million. We are committed to the YT guarantee and we are providing the funds to honour it.

Mr. Dickens : Does my hon. Friend agree that many leaders of local industry are giving their time and experience to ensure the great success of TECs all over the United Kingdom and that it is imperative that we, the Government, ensure that they are properly funded?

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Mr. Jackson : I note what my hon. Friend says and I share his appreciation of the immense efforts being made by TEC board members from business and from other sectors of the community throughout the country. What he had to say about funding is duly noted. We are currently in discussion with the TECs about their budget and I do not think that it would be appropriate for me to comment on the particular circumstances of my hon. Friend's local TEC.

Mr. Wareing : If the Government are so committed to training, how does the hon. Gentleman explain the letter from the Merseyside TEC to Hexagon Community Ltd. in my constituency, telling it that output-related funding is to be cut by 25 per cent. next year? I received a telephone call just before Question Time telling me that that enterprise will have to close. This is in an area of very high unemployment. When the Government mouth words like "people", "jobs" and "training", they should try to convince us that it is more than hypocrisy.

Mr. Jackson : I have had a letter this morning from Hexagon training and I shall be answering it in due course. The relationship between particular providers and particular TECs must be a matter of negotiation between them. Neither of us is in a position to make a judgment about that situation. But I shall certainly be looking into the circumstances of the provider who has written to me.

Courts (Sequestration Power)

13. Mr. Janman : To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what proposals he has to alter the power of the courts to sequestrate the assets of trade unions.

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