Industry (Government Support)

David Lammy Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

I know that my colleague takes a close interest in these matters. She has represented the interests of Solihull and the factory extremely well over the past few years. I am very happy to talk about her proposal, but I want to emphasise the fact that the automotive assistance scheme does not have a permanently open door. Applications have been made, and they will be dealt with on their merits.

I was giving examples of car companies that have flourished and coped with the recession without coming for Government support. Before I went to visit Bentley, I went to another factory, Cosworth—one of several Formula 1 manufacturers in this country, using very high technology. It was flourishing, providing highly skilled manufacturing employment and was not dependent on Government support, like many others. It is not just the specialist producers either, as mass producers—Honda, for example—are also relevant. Honda took a big hit during the recession and the work force accepted part-time working and cuts in pay in order to keep the company together. They did so, and the company did not come forward asking for specific Government assistance. That will now be the pattern.

We have made it very clear—I made it clear in a speech—that we are willing to do what we can to support growth in the British economy, and we will do it by helping build up competences, skills, research and development and so forth, but we are not in the business of handing out money to individual companies. Quite apart from the merits of the proposal, there is an issue of affordability in the financial climate in which we now operate.

Let me start to conclude by clarifying some things that we want to do. We believe, like the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East, that the Government have a role. I do not believe in laissez-faire. The Government have a role; there are many market failures; there is, of course, an important role for Government in this field. It has to be cost-effective, however, and it has to be affordable. Let me summarise some of the things we are starting to do, having been in office for only a month.

The first element is skills. One of the first decisions made by the Government when they came into power was to fund 50,000 apprenticeships. That compares with the 200,000 built up under the last Government over 10 years.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

It was 250,000.

[Vince Cable]

I am sorry, 250,000. We introduced 50,000 within three weeks. There is a very strong commitment—[Interruption.] We have introduced the funding to support those apprenticeships, which is now being taken up through the National Apprenticeship Service.

[Mr Lammy]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Vince Cable]

Let me finish the point. A very rapid move was taken to introduce high-quality apprenticeships —exactly the kind of thing that manufacturing industry requires—from a low base, which we have inherited.

[Mr Lammy]

Will the right hon. Gentleman acknowledge that there is a big difference between suggesting that we need 50,000 apprenticeships and actually finding the businesses to come forward and offer them?

[Vince Cable]

The money has been made available; that is the key point. We know from the National Apprenticeship Service that there is a great deal of interest in this programme and those places will be taken. It is a big advance on the level we inherited. Let me emphasise that, unlike the previous Government, we do not believe that we can fund these things out of thin air. We have funded it by changing our priorities. We have made a decision to cut back on the Train to Gain programme in order to fund these additional apprenticeships. That was based on priorities and on a critical review by the National Audit Office of how the Train to Gain programme operated under the last Government. We discovered that a quarter of all training places would have been funded by the companies anyway, that the programme was paying for the accreditation of skills where those skills already existed and that it was paying for expensive middlemen rather than establishing direct links between businesses and colleges. We now have not just more apprenticeships, but a better mechanism.

Secondly, we want to support further education colleges, which are the basis for post-16 education and training among those who do not go to university. One of the Government’s initial steps was to create a £50 million capital fund, more details of which will be announced tomorrow by the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes). It is worth remembering the Labour Government’s record in respect of FE capital—

--- Later in debate ---

[Vince Cable]

I will take one more intervention, from the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), and then conclude.

[Mr Lammy]

This is sounding a bit like an episode of Bird and Fortune. Will the Secretary of State confirm that the RDAs will be replaced, but local people can determine to replace them with what they had before?

[Vince Cable]

The right hon. Gentleman misunderstands completely. [Hon. Members: “Oh.”] He is confusing two different things: one is function, and the other is geography. They are different things. The RDAs will not continue, under any definition of our policy as it emerges through consultation—they will not perform the same range of functions as they do currently. If local people wish it, they might have a regional form, and that will emerge in due course. I think that enough has been said about the matter. I know that the right hon. Gentleman has struggled to take it in, but I think that where we are heading is abundantly clear.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Lammy Excerpts

Thursday 3rd June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Willetts]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s expertise in the subject and his record of campaigning on it. I completely agree that progression through college to university is one of strengths of some American systems, such as that in California. Experts from California are coming here next week. We definitely need to learn from those systems so that people have opportunities as they progress through education to move from college to university.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his new role. I know that many in the higher education sector value the continuity that he provides, but they also value consistency. In November 2009, he said:

“At a time when the jobs market for young people is tougher than ever, it is far better to find them a place in education than to leave them languishing on the dole.”

Why, within days of taking up the job, has he done a volte face and condemned 10,000 young people to the dole by not providing extra student places to HE this summer? Is that not desperately hypocritical?

[Mr Willetts]

I look forward to my exchanges with the right hon. Gentleman, and of course I recognise his expertise as the former Minister for universities. As he held that position, I am sure that he remembers the grant letter that the former Secretary of State sent out in December 2009 to the Higher Education Funding Council, which involved a reduction in the number of students. We have delivered the pledge that we made to our party conference, and which is in the coalition agreement, of 10,000 extra places. That is why the amount of money going to universities in teaching grant this year is £50 million higher than the figure set out in the December 2009 letter.