I start by saying that I appreciate the concern and disappointment of the hon. Members for Pontypridd (Mr. John) and Caerphilly (Mr. Hudson Davies) at the Manpower Services Commission's decision to close the skillcentre annexe at Treforest. Loss of such a facility can never be welcome to local people.

It is fair to say that that is something that has very much influenced the way in which the MSC has gone about taking its decisions on rationalising the skillcentre network. I hope that I can at least help the hon. Member for Pontypridd and others who may share his views to understand why the MSC has taken its decision.

The decision to close the Treforest annexe is part of a much wider set of decisions on the future shape of the skill-centre network. It is the result of the review established by the previous Labour Government two years ago.

The MSC's aims, which I entirely support, are to get a network of skillcentres located where industry can make most use of them and where a Majority of individuals can easily get access to training. The rationalisation proposals are designed to achieve these aims while providing more training, but in fewer centres and therefore at less cost.

The closures will also enable the commission to put more resources into offering direct training assistance to employers and their employees, through the direct training services. These services are especially valuable in helping new and developing industry, which is of particular importance to Wales.

At a general level, these proposals must make good sense, but the MSC has rightly recognised that closures are bound to disappoint and inconvenience local people. It has paid a great deal of attention to the ways in which individuals will be affected—whether they will have access to alternative training, how difficult the transport arrangements are, whether specal transport needs to be provided, how many other people will benefit from new alternative centres opening and from classes being moved from closed centres, and so on. I believe that the commission has made an honest and successful attempt to decide on a future network that minimises inconvenience and maximises advantage.

The commission has been at pains to consult widely and to take full account of local views. In one or two cases that process is still going on. Obviously, the commission has had to balance the views that it has heard against its aims in rationalising the network to provide a better and a stronger system overall, but as a result of the consultations there have been changes, shifts in emphasis and timetable, and consideration given to transport arrangements. Above all the MSC has taken a positive approach to the best means of ensuring, with the help of local input, that local training needs—of both employers and trainees—are met, whether through skillcentres or otherwise.

The hon. Member for Pontypridd has made his own representations. I hope that he will agree that he has received a full and fair response, even if he cannot share the MSC's conclusions, though I gathered from his remarks that that is not the case.

Perhaps I may now turn to the Treforest annexe, and why the MSC has decided that it should be closed. As the hon. Member will know, and has said, one of the main criteria used by the commission in selecting skillcentres or annexes for closure has been how successful they are in producing trainees who find and settle into jobs using the skills that they have learnt. Another important factor has been how well utilised are the skillcentre facilities, and those of other neighbouring centres. The Treforest annexe has 70 places operational at present. I freely concede that recently these have been well used, with over 90 per cent. of the possible capacity being used. This is partly the result of taking out classes with a poor occupancy record.

Treforest is one of a number of centres within not very many miles of each other. There are a further 270 places at the main centre at Cardiff, an easy eight miles away. There are 250 places at Newport, 15 miles away, and another 160 places at West Gwent skillcentre, 12 miles away. Occupancy has certainly improved in all these centres, but there are unused places—130 in mid-March—and there is unused space. Classes have been shut for lack of an instructor, and they can be opened if staff become available from closing skillcentres.

Overall, the area at present has twice the national average of skillcentre places per head. Even after closures it will still have substantially above average places. No one will quarrel with that, in view of high unemployment and the need to do what we can to regenerate industry. But there is spare capacity close by to take trainees who might otherwise have gone to Treforest.

That is not the main reason why Treforest is to be closed. The commission has had to take account of the employment prospects for trainees. The simple and distressing facts are that of 158 trainees completing courses at the annexe in 1979, only 44–28 per cent.—were placed on completing their course. Of 32 trainees who completed courses in the quarter ending March, only two were placed on completion. And this is not for want of trying by the skillcentre staff. Thank goodness, the results of the regular 100 per cent. survey of trainees, which is taken three months after they finish training, tell a slightly happier story. They show that 58 per cent. of respondents in training used their skills for the quarter ending December last year. But these placing results give a most depressing picture.

Of course the hon. Gentleman is right to stress the need to have facilities available to retrain those who will be made redundant in South Wales, if they want to be trained. However, Treforest is not ideally situated from that point of view. That is why the MSC has taken careful account of the alternative capacity available, and of the timing of other closures in South Wales.

The MSC cannot just offer training with a blind and cynical disregard for whether trainees will get a job at the end. The training is long and arduous. It involves a considerable investment of effort by the individual and of money by the State. I regret that, by and large, employers on the Treforest trading estate and others nearby do not take skillcentre trainees, and they do not use the annexe facilities for upgrading the skill of their own employees, but it is less than fair to trainees to offer them training with such dismal prospects of a job at the end of it. Moreover, their lack of success can give skillcentre training generally a bad name.

The basic facts are that the placing results from Treforest cannot justify its continuance, and that alternative facilities exist reasonably close by.