§ 29. Mr. Kenneth Lewisasked the Minister of Labour what plans he has for improving the service given by employment exchanges for dealing with the increased numbers of unemployed.
§ Mrs. Shirley WilliamsWe are sending special teams of employment officers into factories to deal with large-scale redundancies, but in general we are steadily improving the employment services everywhere in respect of staff, training, and local organisation.
§ Mr. LewisIs not the hon. Lady aware that at the present time many employment exchanges do not have recorded with them the number of vacancies for skilled men that exist in other parts of the country? Will my hon. Friend seek to put this right? It is important that these exchanges should be employment exchanges and not unemployment exchanges.
§ Mrs. WilliamsI agree with the hon. Member about that. There are regular arrangements for the interchange of information about vacancies in different parts of the country. We are looking into ways, through conference telephone calls and also through the use of other machinery, to improve and speed up this system further.
§ Mr. DickensIs my hon. Friend aware that, partly due to the increasing Americanisation and control of British industry a growing number of senior executives are being made unemployed? Will she consider whether or not the Ministry's Professional and Executive Register can be expanded to cope with the need to redeploy these people through a wide range of industry?
§ Mrs. WilliamsWe are working on the expansion and improvement of the Professional and Executive Register, but I agree that we should take the question further still.