Youth Employment

John McDonnell Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

It is with deep regret that I oppose this Bill, and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe). I realise that his plan is well intentioned, but it contains several serious weaknesses, and in one instance a literally fatal flaw.

The first of my concerns are relatively minor, but they still need to be addressed. My hon. Friend proposes to re-establish the careers service scrapped by the previous Government—the Connexions service—but regrettably the proposals are not specific about the scale or location of that service. They do not explain who would be responsible, how it would be paid for or how many members of staff would be employed. They are too general on those matters. They also propose the establishment of apprenticeship training agencies to assist small business—but, to be frank, it is not small businesses that will provide apprenticeships. The bigger gains will come from large employers, which are not pulling their weight at the moment in developing apprenticeships. I regret therefore that my hon. Friend’s proposals do not focus on the large employers.

The outline proposals also say that there will be an inducement to small firms in the form of national insurance cuts and grants to small businesses. I have some anxieties about that, because in the three most recent Finance Bills both the previous Government and the present Government have significantly reduced corporation tax for small businesses and increased capital allowances. My hon. Friend also said that his proposals would be funded by bonus payments to banks and the financial services, which would subsidise the development of apprenticeships. I fully agree with part of that, although it would have been better had he supported my amendment to the Finance Bill on the Robin Hood tax—but perhaps he succumbed to pressure from the shadow Chancellor, as did other Members.

My main concern about the proposals for the Bill, however, is about the lack of reference to a key question about apprenticeships: how can they be made safe on the shop floor? That was one of the key issues addressed by the previous Government, so I regret that my hon. Friend made no reference to it in either his outline proposals or his speech. The previous Government promoted apprenticeships from 1997 onwards, and in the early 2000s the numbers expanded greatly. We all supported that—it was supported across the House—but one element was not put in place: the implementation of health and safety measures when apprenticeships went on to the shop floor.

In 2003 nine apprentices died as a result of a lack of health and safety measures in the companies in which they were placed. As a result, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury South (Mr Lewis), who was then the skills Minister, rightly brought in the civil servants, identified the problem and allocated resources—under legislation and with duties attached—to the Learning and Skills Council, which were then inherited by the Skills Funding Agency. A team of staff were appointed to go into firms where apprentices were placed and carry out a health and safety assessment. In that way, we reduced nine fatalities a year to none. However, that problem is not addressed in my hon. Friend’s proposals.

Since securing health and safety protection for apprentices we have maintained an excellent record, but there is a tragedy waiting to happen. The very staff whom the previous Government appointed—a small unit of 25 in the Skills Funding Agency—are to be sacked in September. Regrettably, the Bill does not address that issue. I would have expected my hon. Friend to include in his proposals a further statutory duty for any proposed apprenticeship training agency to ensure that health and safety are respected and promoted.

It is a matter of regret that these members of staff, who came to meet us yesterday, are to be sacked in September. None of them will be available for the implementation of the Bill. There will be no inspections of workshops, factories or offices, or wherever else apprentices are to be placed. As a result, I predict that there would be a return of injuries and fatalities, and I believe that the House would have some responsibility for those deaths. I would therefore expect my hon. Friend to insert into his Bill a clause giving any Government seeking to develop apprenticeship schemes a further legal duty to ensure that whenever an apprentice is recruited there is a duty of care to ensure that wherever the apprentice is placed complies with health and safety legislation.

The argument that the Government have put, and which might be made in the debate on the Bill, is that the job of the Health and Safety Executive is to ensure that a health and safety regime exits in such companies. I am afraid that that is no longer the case. As a result of the cuts that the Government are implementing, the reduction in staffing for health and safety and the threat from the recent White Paper, health and safety inspections no longer take place on the same scale. That means that when apprentices recruited under this legislation entered the workplace, they would be at serious risk. I would therefore expect any legislation promoting the recruitment of apprentices—I fully agree with apprenticeships, because they ensure that people get a decent training—at least to establish a duty to ensure that those apprentices are safe.

In 2003, when nine youngsters died, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury South took advice from a range of experts—we can offer the correspondence to the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning—and that advice was very straightforward: we needed to take additional responsibility to protect the health and safety of apprentices going out to work. These people are not experienced workers and are therefore even more at risk than those who have been in the workplace before, so we have a special responsibility. Legislation is being promoted that we hope the Government will accept, which would vastly expand the recruitment of apprentices and opportunities for young people—particularly, as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak mentioned, for those not in education, employment or training, who are the people most desperately in need of work and apprenticeships of this sort. If we undertake an expansion on that scale, we have a responsibility to ensure that those youngsters are safe.

The ten-minute rule Bill unfortunately does not address that issue. I hope that this debate will enable my hon. Friend to reconsider the matter and propose a more appropriate Bill that addresses this issue. More importantly, I hope that the Government are listening. In less than 12 weeks, the health and safety team in the Skills Funding Agency will be sacked. As a result, youngsters will be put at risk. I urge the Government to think again on this matter, because as a result of that action we could revert to 2003, and I remember the nine fatalities that occurred as a result of inappropriate protection for those youngsters, as we expanded the apprenticeship scheme at that time.

I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak that although this Bill is well intentioned, although it has good elements and although he has clearly identified a range of issues that need to be addressed, this is not the appropriate way to go about it. I do not believe that he has identified the appropriate mechanism, nor do I believe that he has addressed all the issues, in particular the health and safety of the youngsters concerned. I would urge him to take his proposals back, redraft them and engage in a dialogue with the Government. Let us examine the issue with the staff who are about to be sacked. Let us try to put in place appropriate protection for those youngsters, so that when we give them an apprenticeship not only will they receive training, but they will be protected and appropriate health and safety measures will be in place to ensure their security.

Question put (Standing Order No. 23).