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Industrial Training Levy (Engineering Construction Board) Order 2005

My Lords, I think this must be the fifth year I have debated this order on behalf of my party. Normally it comes in tandem with the Construction Industry Training Board levy. Could the noble Baroness tell us what has happened to that levy? Have we already approved that? I see that we have. Clearly I was not involved in that this year, but I have been in the past. The levy is a remnant of the old industrial training arrangements of the 1960s—the levy grant system. With the industrial training legislation in the 1980s, this was the only industry which maintained the levy grant system. It is entirely voluntary, as the noble Baroness stressed. The industry has positively to ask for the levy to be levied and shared out. As she indicated, it is strongly supported by the firms which pay it—the larger firms in the industry. It does not apply to small firms. The Explanatory Notes show that it has a tougher impact on the larger firms which pay it than the smaller firms. The construction industry and the engineering construction industry have suffered from an endemic problem of the free rider and industry cowboys. Firms that are good citizens and spend money on training can find that their expenditure is for naught because as soon as they have trained somebody that person leaves to join a cowboy firm which does not spend anything on training and, as a result, can afford to offer higher wages. It was to avoid the free rider problem that the concept of the levy grant was originally introduced. The engineering construction industry has been in the forefront of industries in trying to improve the skills situation, in particular to overcome the cowboy skills problem. The ACE scheme, which assures competence in engineering construction, is under way. The aim is to train 20,000 workers up to level 3 standard—the equivalent of A-level but in the vocational area—by   2008. In the engineering construction industry in particular, health and safety is very important. It is vital that people are well trained and understand the importance of health and safety regulations. All this is covered by the training provided under the scheme. We on these Benches very much approve of the scheme. As the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, indicated, it is a co-operative partnership scheme of self-help. We applaud it and only regret that more industries do not follow this example. We would like to see the scheme applied more widely within other industries where training remains a very important issue.