HC Deb 10 July 1963 vol 680 cc1232-3
26. Mrs. Hart

asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what is his estimate of the number of new jobs needed in Scotland in the next seven years to meet a 5 per cent, rate of economic growth, to meet the problem of declining industries, to provide for a growth in the population of employable age, and to prevent migration from Scotland.

Mr. Noble

Many factors are involved in working out a pattern for physical and economic development, and I do not think that publication of an estimate on the basis suggested by the hon. Lady would be very realistic or helpful.

Mrs. Hart

Why on earth not? How is Scotland to end the unemployment position if the Secretary of State himself is not prepared to set a target for the number of jobs needed? Is it not perfectly clear that it is possible to take 120,000 as the number of unemployed last winter, about 100,000 as the increased number employable and about 150,000 resulting from the decline of industry?

Does not this add up to 370,000? Apparently, the Secretary of State will not even give us an estimate. Why not?

Mr. Noble

I am perfectly prepared to do sums in the same way as the hon. Lady has done them. One difficulty is knowing the validity of those sums in any particular case, and it is for that reason that the Scottish Development Group is studying the whole of this problem.

Mrs. Hart

Has not the right hon. Gentleman studied the figures of the Scottish Council for Development and Industry and other figures which have been produced by people who have looked at the problem? Does he not regard them as at all reliable?

Mr. Noble

I have studied the figures produced by the Scottish Council, but I have heard a number of hon. Gentlemen and hon. Ladies opposite saying that they were not worth looking at.

Mr. Ross

In answer to Question No. 21, the right hon. Gentleman told us that he had a newly organised body of statisticians to give him all this information and to work it all out for him. He has had the help of the N.E.D.C. targets in Great Britain. Why is he so reluctant to set a target in respect of the growth of employment in Scotland?

Mr. Noble

I certainly have the help of those people and of my right hon. Friends at the Board of Trade and the Ministry of Labour, but, as N.E.D.C. itself recognises in its second report, setting targets in a regional sense is a very complicated process.