Financial Resolutions, 1978: Financial Statement, Budget, 1978. - Employment incentive scheme
In speaking about youth employment I touched on the employment incentive scheme. The provision in the 1978 Estimates for the scheme is £7 million compared with actual expenditure of £0.8 million last year. I should like to remind employers that the improvements which have been made in this scheme make the employment of extra workers an ex-tremely attractive proposition for employers wishing to expand output. The premium payable for school leavers has been increased from £10 to £14 a week. The scope of the main scheme, under which a premium of £20 a week is payable, has also been extended substantially—to hotels and to the catering industry, to the services sector generally, including banks and insurance companies and also to the building and construction sector on a trial basis. Finally, the scheme will now run for all of 1978.
Details of the job-creation programme are being circulated in the document setting out the "principal features of the budget", which will be available as soon as I have concluded my statement.