To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make a statement on the measures that he has taken to implement his proposals for training credits for 16 to 19-year-olds.

The first 11 pilot schemes started in April and are offering training credits to around 45,000 young people—about 10 per cent. of the 16 and 17-year-olds leaving full-time education this year. The white paper presented to the House on 20 May set out our aim that within the lifetime of the next Parliament, every 16 and 17-year-old leaving full-time education will have the offer of a place on a training scheme. I shall shortly be issuing a prospectus inviting bids from TECs to run a second round of schemes to operate from April 1993.

When my right hon. and learned Friend visits west Lancashire and Skelmersdale on Friday, will he point out to the employers whom he will meet that unemployment in west Lancashire is 37୰5 per cent. lower than it was at the last General Election? Will he point out also the advantages of his training credit scheme, the flexibility that it offers 16 and 17-year-olds, and the overall improvement in skills that it will offer to the work force in my Constituency and in the north-west of England?

I look forward greatly to visiting my hon. Friend's Constituency on Friday. I shall certainly take the opportunity of drawing the attention of employers there to everything that he said—although I expect them to know all about it already, as they are probably far too sensible to be taken in by the constant misrepresentations of the Labour party.

Will the Secretary of State visit Bradford, which suffers from soaring unemployment and has been known for years as "low-pay city"? Will he take my advice and refrain from lecturing the unemployed about the inequities of the minimum wage? What they would like is an explanation of why the right hon. and learned Gentleman has cut the city's training budget by £2 million, why training workshops stand idle and why training providers have been made redundant. That is what the unemployed want to hear; they do not want third-rate lectures about the minimum wage.

I have paid many enjoyable visits to Bradford in the past and look forward to visiting it again soon. Bradford has a particularly effective training and enterprise council, which is addressing its training needs in a particularly effective way. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will want to associate himself fully with its excellent work.

Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that this year nearly 60 per cent. of 16-year-olds are staying on at school or going to college, which is what they should be doing if we are to catch up with our international competitors? For the minority of youngsters who still leave school at the earliest possible opportunity, my right hon. and learned Friend's training credits proposals are flexible and sensible and will enable those young people to make proper choices about the training that they take up.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her support. I entirely agree with her comments.

The training credits scheme—which is a world first for this country—epitomises the difference between the Government and the Labour party. We believe in giving young people opportunities and placing buying power in their hands; Labour believes in the dead hand of compulsion and that is the only policy that it has to offer.