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Work and Skills

I too welcome the Minister to his position. It is the first time that we have debated together. I welcome the opportunity to debate this issue, given the context: last week, the largest rise in unemployment for 17 years was announced, bringing the figure up to 1.79 million. It is likely to rise to more than 2 million by Christmas, so the issue is obviously important. I begin by concentrating on what the hon. Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins) said. It is true that, when it comes to skills, this country has let itself down in the past. The Leitch review set us ambitious literacy and numeracy targets. In 2005, some 85 per cent. of adults were classed as numerate, and 79 per cent. as literate; we are planning to get that figure up to 95 per cent. Those are ambitious, difficult targets. The centrepiece of the Government's skills policy in the past has been Train to Gain. I note what the Minister said earlier about refocusing that, and moving £50 million from the Train to Gain pot and using it to deal with unemployment. The Train to Gain pot, which will be £1 billion by 2011, has been consistently underspent. A statement was issued recently, which I have not seen, to say that £350 million of that money will be refocused on small and medium employers. I would certainly welcome more information on how that will happen. It is quite clear that employers have not taken up the Train to Gain money because of the often bureaucratic and difficult process that they had to go through to access it. I welcome anything that makes that process easier. It is true that in a period of recession—I heard what the Secretary of State said on the subject last week—we have to learn the lessons from the previous recession before deciding what to do. It should not just be a case of paying people benefit once they are unemployed, as happened in the past. We need to do more to help them to find employment and to do gainful work.