asked the Paymaster General how many black and white trainees there were on each youth training scheme in the Birmingham and Solihull area at the latest available date.

The Manpower Services Commission. is urgently considering the extent to which information provided by managing agents and sponsors on the ethnic background of trainees on the youth training scheme can be made available. I shall write to the hon. Member as soon as I am in a position to do so.

asked the Paymaster General if he will provide the best available information on the academic qualifications of (a) black and (b) white trainees on entry to the youth training schemes.

Reliable, comprehensive information is not available. I shall, however, write to the hon. Member with the details of some information we have.

asked the Paymaster General if he has any information that would lead him to revise his estimate of nine deaths on the youth training scheme from 1 April 1983 to 30 June 1985, as given to the hon. Member for Bolsover on 23rd October, Official Report, columns 168–170; and if he will make a statement.

No. The nine fatalities referred to in my reply of 23 October included a fatality which occured in Scotland on 26 February this year and which was the subject of a fatal accident inquiry held on 14 November. If the inquiry finds that the death did not arise out of or in connection with a training or work activity, the fatality will not be included in the Manpower Services Commission's future accident figures for the youth training scheme. I will write to the hon. Member when I know the outcome of the inquiry.

asked the Paymaster General if he will list the number of cases in which the families of youth training scheme trainees who died on youth training schemes were sent cheques for £78 by the Manpower Services Commission in lieu of industrial death benefit payments from the Department of Health and Social Security.

Since the youth training scheme was introduced on 1 April 1983, the parents of six young people have been paid the equivalent of industrial death benefit by the Manpower Services Commission. In five cases the maximum payment of £78 was made and in one case a payment of £52 (the maximum for a single parent) was made.

asked the Paymaster General if he will provide the date of death of each youth training scheme trainee since 1 April 1983 and the cause of death in each case.

The following is a list of fatalities on the youth training scheme since 1 April 1983:

asked the Paymaster-General (1) what is, by each Manpower Services Commission area, the size of the budget and the allocation of premium places for youth training scheme mode B for the year from April 1986; and how this compares with the provision for each year since the scheme was introduced;(2) what is the total Manpower Services Commission budget for 1986–87 for the provision of mode B youth training scheme places; how many places this is expected to provide; and what were the figures for each of the last two financial years.

It is not possible to break down expenditure by area, but the tables show the allocation by area of approved places in mode B1 community projects and training workshops for 1984–85 and 1985–86 Under the two-year youth training scheme from April 1986 the distinction between modes will disappear, but existing mode 131 providers will generally be eligible for the premium rate of funding. The national planning total of approved first-year premium places for 1986–87 is 51,000 (excluding information technology centres). In addition there will be approved second year places, but their number, and the allocations to areas, have yet to be determined. Planned spending on premium places in 1986–87 is also therefore undecided, but in 1983–84, 84,637 places were approved in community projects and training workshops, and expenditure was some £105 milliom; in 1984–85, 65,195 approved places were planned, and some £217 million spent.

asked the paymaster-General if he will publish in the Official Report a breakdown of the regional variations which exist of the percentage of youth training scheme places assessed for performance.

[pursuant to his reply, 18 November 1985, c. 38]: The percentage of approved 1984–85 places covered by programmes assessed in each region by the end of July 1985 was as follows: