Astra Training

EDM number 464 in 1993-94, proposed by Tony Lloyd on 26/01/1994.

That this House notes the remarks of the Under Secretary of State for the Department of Employment recorded in the Official Report of 19th January, column 936, that 'where there is ever any evidence to suggest public money may have been misused, or that the value for public money may not have been met, that is something worthy of investigation, which would come up through the ordinary audit procedures'; notes that the collapse of the Astra Training network shows that public money was misused because Astra were abusing the system of output related funding and claiming public money for successful 'outcomes' which did not exist; notes that the public did not get value for money because millions of taxpayers' money was squandered in the privatisation and subsequent collapse of Astra and this much needed resource has now gone at a time of high unemployment and when skills are desperately needed to form the basis of future economic prosperity and that ordinary audit procedures did not reveal Astra's abuse of the funding system and that there are no financial controls to ensure this abuse cannot happen again; further notes that successive Secretaries of State have helped create this appalling fiasco and then washed their hands of any responsibility; and calls on the Government to honour the promises of their own Minister and at the very least hold an independent inquiry and recover public money where it has been misappropriated.

This motion has been signed by a total of 115 MPs, 1 of these signatures have been withdrawn.