Oral Answers to Questions — Employment – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 10 March 1992.
Mr Douglas French
, Gloucester
12:00,
10 March 1992
To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what recent representations he has received on the subject of the introduction of a statutory payroll levy.
Michael Howard
Secretary of State for Employment
I have received representations from various sources on the subject of a statutory payroll levy related to employers' training expenditure. The most recent, from the Institute of Directors, firmly opposed
any system of levy or tax that discriminates between employers on the basis of assumptions about what a firm spends on training".
Mr Douglas French
, Gloucester
Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that, among the many business men who have condemned the payroll tax as likely to cost companies money and, therefore, jobs, is the president of the chamber of trade in Teesside? Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that if the Labour spokesman is unable to convert to Labour policies those business men in his immediate area, he is also unlikely to convince the country?
Michael Howard
Secretary of State for Employment
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. Increasingly, we find protests from employers in the area represented by the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) about the effect of his policies and those of the Labour party. The truth is now out—Labour's policies would be disastrous for jobs.
Henry McLeish
, Central Fife
Is the Secretary of State aware that the Labour Force Survey was published today? Will he take time to explain to the House why, in the past year, 177,000 fewer people were in training in Britain—a reduction of 5·4 per cent? Whatever happened to all the talk about a world-class skills revolution? What about the fact that £20 billion is supposed to be spent by industrialists? Is not it really the case that the Government do not care about training, that we have a disastrous training record and that it is high time that we had a Labour Government to tackle the problems?
Michael Howard
Secretary of State for Employment
The same survey showed an increase of more than 100 per cent. between 1984 and 1991 in the number of people receiving training paid for by their employers and seven times as many people receiving training now as in 1979. That is the reply to the Opposition's synthetic protestations. [Interruption.]
Mr Bernard Weatherill
, Croydon North East
Order. I ask the House to settle down and listen to the questions.
Secretary of State was originally the title given to the two officials who conducted the Royal Correspondence under Elizabeth I. Now it is the title held by some of the more important Government Ministers, for example the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
The Labour Force Survey (LFS) is a quarterly sample survey of households living at private addresses in Great Britain. Its purpose is to provide information on the UK labour market that can then be used to develop, manage, evaluate and report on labour market policies. The questionnaire design, sample selection, and interviewing are carried out by the Social and Vital Statistics Division of the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on behalf of the Statistical Outputs Group of the ONS.
More details: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/STATBASE/Source.asp?vlnk=358&More=Y
The Opposition are the political parties in the House of Commons other than the largest or Government party. They are called the Opposition because they sit on the benches opposite the Government in the House of Commons Chamber. The largest of the Opposition parties is known as Her Majesty's Opposition. The role of the Official Opposition is to question and scrutinise the work of Government. The Opposition often votes against the Government. In a sense the Official Opposition is the "Government in waiting".
