asked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will take steps to tighten up regulations surrounding the job experience scheme in order to avoid the scheme being used by employers to obtain publicly subsidised cheap labour.

I am informed by the Manpower Services Commission that all employers are required to declare that their trainees on work experience schemes are not taking the place of permanent employees, and there are arrangements to make periodic visits to a proportion of schemes. The MSC has recently reviewed its arrangements for monitoring schemes and will continue to keep them under review.