Scotland (Hansard, 13 March 1963)

§ 11. Mr. Dempsey
asked the Minister of Labour what is the total number of persons over and under 18, respectively, registering as unemployed, in March, 1961, 1962, and 1963, respectively, in Scotland.

§ Mr. Hare
On 13th March, 1961, 69,037 people aged 18 or over and 3,170 aged under 18 were registered as unemployed compared with 75,759 and 4,468 respectively on 12th March, 1962. The figures for March, 1963, are not yet available.

§ Mr. Dempsey
Will not the Minister agree that this is a serious state of affairs? Is it not about time that he drew the attention of the Prime Minister to the scandalous unemployment situation in Scotland? Would he consider, for example, asking the Prime Minister to call a conference of all the Ministers involved, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the President of the Board of Trade, the Secretary of State for Scotland and the spending Ministers, with a view to getting both orders and new industries into Scotland, and thus tackling this serious problem in a realistic fashion?

§ Mr. Hare
As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Government take very seriously the whole problem of unemployment in Scotland. He knows perfectly well, for instance, that the Prime Minister has seen the Scottish T.U.C., the Scottish Council and the Secretary of State for Scotland, together with my other right hon. Friends who have responsibility in this field. They are, of course, doing all that they can to improve the situation.

§ Mr. Woodburn
Is it not the case that the Government knew that the railways were going to close down and that they appointed Dr. Beeching for the purpose? Is it not the case that they knew that the mines were going to close down, and that they knew that shipbuilding was going into decline, and why have they waited until the last moment to try to remedy all that?

§ Mr. Hare
The answer is that it is quite true that the contraction of the older industries has caused a greater loss of jobs than the production of new jobs. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, a considerable effort has been made to provide new jobs. We want to see that the effort is increased very considerably in order to deal with that wastage in the older industries of which the right hon. Gentleman has been talking.