That would not be significantly inflationary because, as I said to the Minister earlier, the Skill Crisis in the building industry would not allow us to use the money quickly.

What has gone so wrong that we now face a Skills Crisis and that the Government seem intent on walking away from it?

The Government are in danger of isolating themselves from mainstream opinion on training, but, more important, they are in danger of turning their back on the emerging Skills Crisis, which has enormous implications for the challenges of 1992 and for our ability to compete in a world in which other countries invest in development and innovation, linked to training in a way about which either the Government have no conception or, if they have, it is not reflected in their actions.

We wish to congratulate the construction industry training board and the engineering industry training board on their work and their commitment to tackle the emerging Skills Crisis.

To engage the nation in tackling the Skills Crisis, we need not only the participation of employers but firm leadership from the Government.

Nowhere is Our Skills Crisis more evident than in engineering.

We must now take seriously the fact that we have a Major Skills Crisis.

When we examine the Skills Crisis that Britain faces, when, after 11 years of his Government, the Secretary of State is still talking about pilot schemes, when we confront the magnitude of our failure and the mountain that we have to climb, does he really believe that his announcement measures up to the scale of the revolution in skills that we say Britain needs?

Is not it a pity that the Government have to rely on charity to tackle Britain's Skills Crisis?

That is supposed a positive contribution to the Skills Crisis and a proper reflection of the Government's concern for people who do not have skills.

No one would dispute the fact that the United Kingdom faces a Skills Crisis, and the Opposition can be forgiven for being deeply cynical about the widening gap between the claims of the ministerial team in the Department of Employment and the skills reality that they are supposed to be tackling.

Last year, the Confederation of British Industry called for a skills revolution, and in its evidence to the House of Lords Select Committee in May this year, it described as "a considerable challenge" the Skills Crisis that Britain faces, and warned that the skills gap "may even be widening".

Less than a year ago, the previous Secretary of State described Britain's Skills Crisis as a mountain to climb, but such language has gone.

When will the Government abandon voluntarism and give some leadership in the Skills Crisis?

I endorse also the suggestion made by the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield that Britain's Skills Crisis existed long before the last war, and he made a specific reference to the mid-1880s.

My hon. Friends may not win the vote tonight, but we shall win the election, and tackle the Skills Crisis.

It would be bad enough if the industry was facing only a Skills Crisis.

No one believes that the £25 million put towards training - not this year but next year - by the Government in the Budget is in any way adequate to deal with the Skills Crisis that this country faces.

It is a molehill of a measure compared with the mighty mountain of the Skills Crisis in industry and across the economy.

Why is it that, after acknowledging publicly the depth of the Skills Crisis, the Government have cut the training budget?

Every objective criterion shows that the Skills Crisis is deepening and that the skills gap between Britain and its major competitors is widening.

I challenge the Minister to wish away this doubling of unemployment, this almost complete failure to create jobs, This Skills Crisis and this slump in vacancies.

The hon. Member for Fife, Central says that TECs have been set upat breakneck speed with scant regard to the complex and interrelated problems underpinning Britain's Skills Crisis.

deplores the continued mismanagement of the economy, which has plunged all parts of the nation into a deep and damaging recession, causing unprecedented and avoidable levels of business failures and rapidly rising unemployment; regrets the errors that are already apparent in the Government's 333 forecasts for the economy made in the Autumn Statement; condemns the failure of the Government to invest in the economic infrastructure and vital public services; and calls upon the Government to promote an investment-led recovery including financial incentives for investment in manufacturing, tax credits for the enhancement of technology, assistance for regional economic development and a major programme of education and training to tackle Britain's continuing Skills Crisis.

and calls upon the Government to promote an investment-led recovery including financial incentives for investment in manufacturing, tax credits for the enhancement of technology, assistance for regional economic development and a major programme of education and training to tackle Britain's continuing Skills Crisis".

I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:declines to approve the Autumn Statement; deplores the continued mismanagement of the economy, which has plunged all parts of the nation into a deep and damaging recession, causing unprecedented and avoidable levels of business failures and rapidly rising unemployment; regrets the errors that are already apparent in the Government's forecasts for the economy made in the Autumn Statement; condemns the failure of the Government to invest in the economic infrastructure and vital public services; and calls upon the Government to promote an investment-led recovery including financial incentives for investment in manufacturing, tax credits for the enhancement of technology, assistance for regional economic development and a major programme of education and training to tackle Britain's continuing Skills Crisis.

The amendmentcondemns the failure of the Government to invest in the economic infrastructure and vital public services; and calls upon the Government to promote an investment-led recovery including financial incentives for investment in manufacturing, tax credits for the enhancement of technology, assistance for regional economic development and a major programme of education and training to tackle Britain's continuing Skills Crisis.

I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:condemns the Government for the depth of the recession, rising unemployment and the nation's Skills Crisis; and calls on the Government to cease its irrelevant attacks on trade unions and instead adopt a modern agenda for industrial relations which should include action on jobs, training, equal opportunities and fair treatment for people at the workplace, and support for the European Social Charter".

We take exception to that and I want to highlight the continuing Crisis in Skills in Britain and the Government's failure to face up to the reality of that crisis, and to describe some of the deficiencies in Government policies.

My speech is germane not only to the engineering industry but to the wider Skills Crisis that the Government are ignoring.

Given the Crisis in Skills, the Government cannot run away from their responsibilities by pretending that the Treasury is holding a pistol to their head and is saying that they will have to shave off further expenditure on YT, ET or TECs.

Will the Secretary of State tell the House when he expects to meet Professor Donald Mackay to discuss the Skills Crisis in Scotland, because, despite the ludicrous answer that he gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Ross), 83 per cent.

Is that a proper response to Our Skills Crisis?

All the schemes were launched with the razzmatazz of media publicity, but were irrelevant to the Skills Crisis facing Britain.

That is just one example of the Skills Crisis locally and nationally in the engineering sector.

318WH Basically, a lot of work is going on, but we have Skills Crisis which, I hope, is being addressed.

Basically, a lot of work is going on, but we have Skills Crisis which, I hope, is being addressed.

target - is not appropriate, as it exaggerates demand for graduate-level qualifications and diverts attention from the Real Skills Crisis in our country.

The CBI and the TUC recently estimated the cost of the Skills Crisis to the British economy at a staggering £10 billion a year - that is, about £170 for every man, woman and child in the country.

However, the Minister knows that, as the leaked report has shown, Britain faces a Skills Crisis, particularly a language skills crisis.

Spending on research and development is falling and there is a Skills Crisis, with 5 million people having no qualifications at all.

The Skills Crisis is affecting our economy and we need a debate on it.

The British Chambers of Commerce says that the UK faces a Skills Crisis.

Lord Leitch is frank on the scale of the Skills Crisis facing our country.

They need to recognise that, as noted by the British Chambers of Commerce, we have a Massive Skills Crisis.

However, we have a Skills Crisis now.

The Bill needed to focus on light-touch regulation, innovation, local expertise and accountability, a demand-led strategy and a serious recognition that economic exclusion resulting from the Current Skills Crisis is getting worse, not better.

It is too piecemeal, limited and unambitious to make a significant contribution to tackling Britain's Skills Crisis.

My hon. Friend has spoken of the Skills Crisis.

It set out or reiterated many eminently worthy objectives, but what was sadly and blatantly missing was a coherent, credible action plan to achieve those objectives and thus address the Skills Crisis among Britain's youth.

No doubt the intention was to show how seriously the Government take the Skills Crisis, but it revealed instead that the lessons of long-term failure in vocational training have still not been learnt.

The Secretary of State will be aware that the power industry has reduced its work force significantly since privatisation in 1990 and that there is now a Skills Crisis in the power engineering profession.

Meanwhile, the British nuclear industry faces a Major Skills Crisis.

That is no way to tackle the Skills Crisis that we face in this country.

I want to draw out a couple of remarks from today's debate and to sharpen the points of some of the questions that my colleagues have asked the Minister, but I will start by discussing the Skills Crisis that so many businesses up and down the country are now confronting.

Until This Skills Crisis is addressed systematically, productivity will remain poor and the underlying cause of much of the concern about immigration will continue- namely, the shortage of good employment with training opportunities for the two-thirds of our young people who do not go straight from school to university.

In a week when Britain faces a Skills Crisis and has had to import brickies from Poland, when the chief inspector of schools has highlighted the failure of Government policy in raising standards in secondary education, and when a leading head teacher has said the Secretary of State is “just not up to the job”, this country deserves better than this poorly thought through end-of-term initiative.

We know that the UK is facing the Worst Skills Crisis for a generation, with skills levels failing to support the diversity of the modern economy and secure job opportunities and investment for the future.

I want to reflect on not only some of the problems of the Skills Crisis, but some of the less well-rehearsed consequences.

The CBI, that bastion of socialism, has said that we have a Skills Crisis that the Budget will not fix.

We must tackle the Skills Crisis in construction.

Fourthly, on access to training, women who return to the workplace after extended career breaks can face a Skills Crisis.

I thank the Minister for that Answer, but we have a Skills Crisis in the creative industries and it starts at school.

On the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, the Skills Crisis was being addressed through a tenacious local entrepreneur and they were building websites.