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Mrs. Caroline Spelman (Meriden): I am pleased to be able to speak in support of the new clause and amendments. I am frustrated, because we spoke at length in Committee about the impact on business, and put a strong case to the Government, explaining why we wanted to help them to ensure that there were no unintended casualties of the Bill. I remain unconvinced by some of the arguments that I have heard. We are talking about compulsory paid training being imposed on business, which causes difficulties.
We have theorised about the impact of the Government's measures during the debate. The Minister told my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Green) that the impact of the new deal had not started yet. I am particularly keen to participate in the debate, because one of the pilot schemes for the new deal for 18 to 24-year-olds is being run in my constituency. I have kept in close contact with the private company that has been selected to deliver the new deal in my area. Many hon. Members might think of Solihull as an affluent area, but it has pockets of serious deprivation and high unemployment among young people. Applying the new deal tests some of the theories that we have been discussing.
The impact on business, small or large, is not neutral. If an employee asks an employer to be allowed to go to a local college to obtain qualifications, there is an effect on company productivity. A replacement has to be found. There are recruitment costs and two staff appear, from the point of view of productivity, to be doing a job that was formerly done by one.
From my conversations with Capita, which is responsible for delivering the new deal for 18 to 24-year-olds in Solihull, it is clear that there will be an impact on 16 and 17-year-olds. Capita is actively going out to local employers marketing the benefits of the new deal--the benefits of taking on the 18-to-24 age group for the job vacancies that arise. The 18 to 24-year-old will come with a £60 a week job subsidy and a £750 training golden handshake.
In contrast, the 16 to 17-year-old school leaver will walk in at the door looking for a job with less maturity and less job experience, if any. So it is not unrealistic for Capita to point out to me, as the local Member of Parliament, that it, too, sees the problem that the 16 to 17-year-olds will lose out.
Subsection (c) of the new section 63A that clause 29 would insert into the Employment Rights Act 1996 mentions the need to provide educational opportunities for someone who
None the less, are we right, through the Bill, to ask businesses to turn round and pick up the cost for providing training at a basic level of attainment that we would otherwise have expected young people to achieve through the education system? I suggest that we are asking too much of businesses.
I support what my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford said about the economic cycle. The new deal is being launched in relatively good economic times. The new Government have a golden economic legacy, and thus a period in which to launch the initiative, the aims of which we share, to encourage young people off welfare and into work.
However, these are the good times. What will happen to such initiatives in the bad times, when the recessionary cycle bites? In my constituency and the surrounding areas, west midlands manufacturing is already in the bad times. The recession is already biting in manufacturing, making it even less likely that businesses large or small will take on young, relatively inexperienced employees.
It is not unreasonable to suggest compensating business for the impact of our asking it to take on the burden of the failures of the education system. It may surprise Labour Members to hear Conservatives asking for that, but we share--
Mr. Hilton Dawson (Lancaster and Wyre):
May I try to penetrate the cloud of gloom that the hon. Lady has
Mrs. Spelman:
I believe that the hon. Gentleman has just joined us. We are talking not about the new deal but about its bearing on 16 to 17-year-olds' right to study. The point that we are making is about the impact of the introduction of the new deal on that group. I am not trying to be gloomy; I am trying to be practical.
The fact is that manufacturing is in recession, and it is looking hard at recruitment--
Mr. Reed:
When manufacturing came out of recession in the early 1980s and in the early 1990s, was not one of the problems that the sector found a massive skills shortage, because the first thing that companies had done in the recession was to stop training? Is that not evidence of the need to continue training? Other European countries could pick themselves up out of recession more quickly because they continued to train during periods of recession.
Mrs. Spelman:
The hon. Gentleman's intervention allows me to return to a point that he touched on in his speech. There are fundamental differences between the practical training available in this country and training in Germany for 16 to 17-year-olds, which he cited. In this country we do not have the equivalent of the Handelschule. Being a student of such matters, the hon. Gentleman will know that that is a clearly designated school of training for applied skills, of which there is no equivalent in the British educational tradition--although perhaps the Minister should consider the idea.
In Germany such schools remain within the education system. We are not looking at the German example and replicating their successful schools of practical training if we ask business to do the job for us. The hon. Gentleman should know that it is important to make a distinction between the British and the German education systems. Otherwise one could go away with the impression that German business was doing all that. As for our competitiveness, I remind the hon. Gentleman to look closely at unemployment rates among our young people and among those in countries such as Germany and France, because they are revealing.
I wholly endorse the new clause, which seeks to compensate business for bearing an unfair burden. Amendment No. 106, reasonably, imposes a time limit. Why should the requirement from business be open-ended? Our amendment comes close to the old concept of "one-day" day release--the idea of eight hours of study, for which the employer pays. For the requirement to be open-ended would be unreasonable.
Mrs. Diana Organ (Forest of Dean):
Will the hon. Lady give way?
Mrs. Spelman:
I am just about to finish my speech.
In Committee we tried to help the Government by warning them--people can call it gloomy if they like, but I consider it realistic--that the 16 to 17-year-olds are a group of people in British society whom, probably unwittingly, they would disadvantage under this part of the Bill. The Prime Minister used the term "the Loaded generation" to define a group disaffected from statutory education. That is the group that is likely to suffer if the Bill is passed unamended. That is why I support the new clause and the amendments.
Valerie Davey (Bristol, West):
Yesterday, concern was expressed from all parts of the House that more young people from low-income families should be entering higher education, so I am disappointed that all those Members are not here this evening to celebrate this part of the Bill.
We are genuinely concerned to ensure that young people aged from 16 to 18 are encouraged into education and training. Rather than relating that subject to the new deal, I encourage Members to read the Select Committee report on further education published last week. If the Government take that on board, more young people will be encouraged and enabled to stay on at school between 16 and 18, and therefore to enter higher education.
However, that will not happen immediately, so young people going into work deserve that level of training, encouraged by the Government--
Mr. Hayes:
Does the hon. Lady believe that society has an ethical responsibility to fund that, or should it be funded at random--by businesses and individuals, for example?
Valerie Davey:
We certainly recommend that all corners of society should contribute. The hon. Gentleman may say that education is expensive, but I am sure that business and industry, and our community, would agree that lack of education is even more expensive. We need to encourage business to make its contribution, and I think that the Opposition have underestimated the contribution that that sector is already making, and the good will involved.
I shall now talk briefly about the two amendments. The hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman) talked about eight hours, but the amendment does not say whether that means eight hours a week, a month or a year. The amendment is sloppily worded and should have been refined before being brought to the House.
"has not attained such standard"
within the statutory education system. We know thatthat reflects the facts of life, and that some 16 to 17-year-olds--I have many in my constituency--become disenchanted and under-achieve in the education system. For them, school seems to have lost its meaning.
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