HC Deb 28 March 1968 vol 761 cc1724-5
Q7. Mr. Bishop

asked the Prime Minister what further action is proposed to deal with the problem of unemployment following his visits to development areas; and if he will make a statement.

The Prime Minister

Over the past year the Government has more than doubled assistance to the development areas. This massive programme should progressively bring about a steady improvement in their position and indeed, as the House knows, there has for some months past been a more than proportionate fall in unemployment in development area regions.

Mr. Bishop

Although I welcome the improvement in development areas, will my right hon. Friend tell us whether he is satisfied with the number of export committees set up in factories as anticipated in his speech at Burnley in January?

The Prime Minister

No, Sir, but I think there is growing interest in industry—I have visited one or two committees—in joint consultation as a means of exploiting the opportunities available to us. This was a proposal not only for the development areas for industry throughout the country and for exporters and potential exporters throughout the country. As to the development areas, while none of us is satisfied, recent progress means that unemployment in the development areas is lower than it was in mid-1964 in the middle of a pre-election boom.

Mr. Baker

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that part of the trouble in the development areas is not unemployment, but depopulation? Can we have an assurance that he will take some action in that respect?

The Prime Minister

These two issues are very closely related one to the other. One reason why we have continued to discriminate between the development areas and many grey areas, even though there are grave problems in the grey areas, has been the heavy impact over many years now of the migration problem from certain development areas. The answer is that any action taken to regenerate these areas will have an effect not only on the unemployment level, but on employment opportunities, and, therefore, will be a disincentive to emigration from the areas, especially—and this is most important of all—among young workers.