Commons debate on Training Board
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• The Parliamentary Prayer to annul the Industrial Training Levy (Road Transport) Order 1970 (CM last week) may be debated in the Commons after all when MPs return, following the Christmas recess.
This would be in line with the Government's express intention to take a look at the working of the Industrial Training Act Which has been in operation since 1964.
In particular, it wishes to see that the Boards-28 had been set up by the end of last year—are appropriate to the industries covered and that no superfluous bureaucracy has been created.
There have, of course, been long-standing complaints about the implementation of the icily /grant system.
rt has been suggested in particular that the present system imposes an unequal burden on smaller companies who, because of limited staffs, cannot take full advantage of the facilities provided. These criticisms led earlier to the abandonment of the original scheme for the agricultural industry.
Although the Government remains faithful to the principles of the Act, which was passed by the previous Conservative administration, the aim is to see what improvements can be made in it.
To this end a discussion on the operations of the Road Transport Industry Training Board could be a useful method of sounding out opinion of MPs on the operation of the boards in general.
Althotigh it appeared that the Prayer, tabled by Mr Marcus Fox, Conservative MP for Shipley, had been put down too late to be given time for discussion, it now seems that the Government is likely to give it a run.
This would mean a 90-minute debate, providing the opportunity for half-a-dozen MPs, in addition to Mr Fox, to express their views, before a Department of Employment Junior Minister gives the Government's reply. If, contrary to expectation, time is not found for the Prayer to be discussed, Mr Fox will seek the less-satisfactory alternative of raising the matter in a half-hour adjournment debate.
It is understood that this annulment prayer is the first statutory move in the campaign to alter the basis on which the RTIT13 is run, and on which it arrives at levy and other financial decisions.
As reported in CM on October 30, the trade associations covering operators in scope of the Board have banded together to form a Joint Committee on Training, one of whose principal aims is to have the Board split into three, administering haulage, passenger transport, and the n'iotor trade through three individual sub-boards.