To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make a statement about training opportunities for (a) those with special needs and (b) women returnees.

Mr. Jackson:

Training and enterprise councils are required to set out in their business plans how they intend to offer suitable training to people with special needs and those returning to the labour market. Those plans form the basis of their contract with my Department and a substantial proportion of the £1·7 billion spent through TECs on employment training and youth training go to people with special needs and to women returners.

In addition, we have the £35 million of resources for ET targeted at those with special needs which was announced by my right hon. and learned Friend the other day.

Does the Minister accept that the gap between what the Government say in the House about training and what is happening throughout the country is incredible? In west Wales, for example, the number of training weeks has been cut by 43,000, or 21 per cent., including 38 places for special needs trainees. The number of courses for part-time training has been chopped all over Neath, depriving particularly women returnees of much-needed opportunities. Those women cannot take up full-time courses because of child care responsibilities. Is not it time the Government admitted that their training programme is an absolute disgrace and a shambles?

Mr. Jackson:

We need no lectures from the Labour party. We are spending two and a half times as much in real terms on training, vocational education and enterprise as was spent when the Labour party was last in office. Every time Labour Members make a statement about these matters, their expenditure commitments are qualified by references to "resources allowing".