§ Motion and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Harper.]
§ 3.5 a.m.
§ Mr. Eric S. Heffer (Liverpool, Walton)I regard this brief debate as one of the utmost importance to Merseyside and its future development. Merseyside has long had a problem of unemployment. It is not new to the present Government, who have done more than most since the war to channel employment to the area. It is estimated that 51,000 additional jobs have accrued to the area through the use of industrial development certificates since 1964.
Nevertheless, on 9th June, 1969, overall unemployment on Merseyside was 26,799 compared with 24,859 in June, 1968. Merseyside has a 3.8 per cent. unemployment compared with 2.2 per cent. for the North-West and an average of 2.2 per cent. for the country as a whole.
The situation for building operatives is particularly acute. In the construction industry on Merseyside on 9th June, there were 5,056 unemployed compared with 3,500 in June, 1968, while on 4th June there were only 314 unfilled vacancies notified to employment exchanges.
302 The position is seen to be even worse when the figures are broken down to show the position of skilled workers. There were 1,657 unemployed craftsmen, of whom 272 were joiners, and 2,704 unskilled, while there were 663 in other categories, including foremen and semiskilled. I personally know joiners and other skilled workers who have been forced to leave the area, so that the numbers do not give the whole story.
Some of those affected have been out of work for months rather than weeks, and the position is serious. It is particularly criminal that skilled labour should be left without employment. I regard all unemployment as a crime and, although benefits are higher, it should be understood that many building operatives do not enjoy the higher benefits because of the nature of their employment. Yet Merseyside is a development area. What is happening is that we are running hard to create employment and finding ourselves basically on the same spot.
Why has this situation come about? I believe that there are a number of reasons. First, the application of selective employment tax to the building industry has led to a slowing down of construction work. Secondly, the general squeeze on credit and investment bears particularly on the building industry and has led to the holding back and postponement of a number of projects
303 Thirdly, the housing programme has been slowed down by the Liverpool Corporation and other local authorities in the area. I mean by that that the numbers of houses and flats being built has not substantially increased and remains at approximately the level of 3 million per annum, particularly in Liverpool. Fourthly, some of the large outside contractors are bringing in workers from outside of the area, something which is inexplicable to the Merseyside workers and which causes a great deal of anger and frustration.
I want to quote a letter I received from Mr. W. Crichton. Secretary of the National Federation of Building Trade Operatives in that area, in which he says:
It will be appreciated that the need for houses and other building trade work required in the area and the unemployed craftsman, semi-skilled and unskilled, is a luxury which the country cannot afford, and if used in a proper way the housing needs of the City could be dealt with in a more urgent and efficient manner. It should also be noted that in consequence of the policies being carried out by the present local authority the labour force employed by the direct labour department of approximately 2,400 operatives is being allowed to run down and they are receiving no further contracts. This is also going to add a considerable number to the already high percentage of unemployed. It would appear to me that some type of inquiry should be held when a situation of this sort is allowed to develop, at a time when Cabinet Ministers and such emphasise the need for greater efficiency and productivity.I agree entirely with the sentiments expressed there. Liverpool should be stepping up its housing programme. The subsidies provided under the Housing Act are as follows: in 1963–64 the city received £1,328,576, in 1967–68 the subsidies were £2,058,923, and in 1968–69 they were £2,433,615. That is over £1 million more which is being paid in subsidies by the Government and therefore the building programme should be leaping ahead. Yet we see that there is far too much pulling down in the city, far too many open spaces and not enough building taking place.A great deal of unnecessary hardship is being caused to good working people which could be avoided. Employers will not train apprentices because of S.E.T., and this means a loss in the future to our country and to my area in particular. Workers are being forced to dig up their 304 roots and move to other parts of the country when work should be available for them in the area from which they come. The Liverpool and district building operative is a hard-working, keen, talented man and is prepared always to give of his best. It is true that the building operative on Merseyside wants his just rewards, but I see nothing wrong in that. In return he is prepared to give his best to the industry.
I want to make the following proposals. First, if the local authorities fail to step up house building the Government should step in and augment what is already being done. This could be achieved through a National Building Corporation, and I hope that the Government will take note of this proposal. Liverpool and district needs houses. The people of the area are crying out for homes and every building operative should be fully employed. When one realises that in Liverpool alone we have a waiting list which, although now diminished somewhat, nevertheless has many thousand names on it, one appreciates the great need for housing.
Secondly, the Government must end S.E.T. for the building trade. I have argued here before that I see no point in it. The building trade is not a service industry. It is an industry of the utmost importance, and I believe that S.E.T. must be brought to an end for the building trade. If the Government say that they cannot bring it to an end throughout the country, nevertheless I think that they could bring it to an end in areas of high unemployment like Merseyside.
There should also be a stepping-up of the road and cross-river programme on Merseyside. We all recognise that communications are essential for the wellbeing of Merseyside. Those communications—new roads, bridges and the tunnels that are required—would give the people in the industry the employment they need and would also help to bring in other employment. We cannot make Merseyside a really prosperous area unless we have the proper communications system.
I demand that this matter be treated as an emergency. The number of 5,037 construction workers unemployed on Merseyside is far too high. I know the misery that this means to those working people. I was a construction worker for 305 many years in the area and I know what it is to be out of work. If men are out of work for some months—and some of these workers have been out of work for a few months, some as long as six months —they begin to lose confidence in their ability. They are not bad workers. Many of them are highly skilled. We cannot afford to have people in this day and age suffering this sort of thing.
We need on Merseyside homes, hospitals, schools, more factories, roads and a better communications system. We have the unemployed workers. We have the job to do, and I am asking that the Government should do everything possible to bring what I think is a serious situation to an end, give our people employment and, at the same time, help the general prosperity of Merseyside.
§ 3.18 a.m.
§ Mr. Ernest Marples (Wallasey)I agree with the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) that all is not well on Merseyside for the construction industry. I intervene only for three minutes because, first, I have a general knowledge of the building and civil engineering industry; secondly, my constituency is concerned; but, thirdly, I have a particular knowledge of Merseyside because, as Minister of Transport, I arranged the second Mersey tunnel, which was to go from my constituency of Wallasey to Liverpool.
I agree with the hon. Member that something must be done on Merseyside, especially regarding the labour situation and the big building contractors, but I disagree with him in his diagnosis. To prove my point, I would like to refer to the tunnel, which was started on the Liverpool side in June, 1967, and was due to be finished in December, 1969a period of two and a half years—but so far, in spite of all the labour being there, it is six months late, there has been a dispute with the building workers and the report is that the trade unions and the Federation of Civil Engineering Contractors resolved the dispute and gave an award in favour of the contractor but the men still went on strike and kept out of work. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that something should be done, but I do not think it will be unless we have an inquiry into what is wrong, with the bad name Merseyside is getting for strikes. I am not saying for a moment 306 that that bad name is justified, but it is there, and as long as it is there major contractors will shy away from that area, or they will have to pay, as they did with one of the tunnel contracts, a 95 per cent. bonus on the basic wage.
I would ask the hon. Gentleman if he would come with me to see the local people, the unions and the employers' federation, to see if we can find logically the reason why things are going sour in the building industry and the civil engineering industry on Merseyside. If he will do that I shall be delighted to help him and to be as constructive as I possibly can. I assure him his diagnosis is wrong, but at the same time his anxiety is well justified.
§ 3.21 a.m.
§ The Under-Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity (Mr. E. Fernyhough)My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) will, of course, determine for himself whether or not he responds to the invitation of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wallasey (Mr. Marples).
I want to say straightaway that I appreciate my hon. Frend's deep concern over the unemployment problem on Merseyside. There is one thing I would like him to understand, that big as this problem appears to be it is not as big as the problem in the area which I represent. If the rest of the development areas had done as well as Merseyside development area has done the total number of unemployed today would be much smaller.
My hon. Friend ought to recognise, too, that the Government themselves appreciated that Merseyside still needed help, in the sense that although the Hunt Committee recommended that Merseyside should become an intermediate area the Government, nevertheless, decided that it should remain a development area, with all the advantages which accrue from being so scheduled. I appreciate, too, the waste of human resources, particularly skilled human resources, if we have able workers unemployed. It cannot be said that the Government are being indifferent to this. Let us consider the money which has been poured into the Merseyside development area. We started with a figure of £8 million, roughly, in 1965–66. In the year 1968–69 that figure is likely to be between £70 million and 307 £80 million. This gives some idea of the concern which the Government have about the general economic well-being of that area.
I know that my hon. Friend, because of his past experiences, feels very deeply about this problem, but I hope that he will appreciate that it is a problem with which I have lived all my life. Like him, I, too, will never rest content till every man who is able and willing to work finds himself able to follow a job and earn his living in a civilised and a dignified manner. I hope that my hon. Friend will also appreciate that the unemployment problem we have today is a vastly different problem from that of the days when he was a young man. Then, unemployment was not only the denial of the right to work, but it was accompanied by a harsh, brutal poverty. What ever he has said about the present Administration, it must be acknowledged that, at a time when great technological changes were taking place, we tried, as it were, to cushion the blow which those who became its victims felt. Our redundancy payments and wage-related benefits have helped to make life a little more congenial than it would otherwise have been, had that social legislation not been passed.
My hon. Friend will appreciate that I am not in a position tonight to give him any satisfactory answer about S.E.T. If he wants a specific answer, he has been here long enough to know that the question must be addressed to another Minister. Likewise on his concern about better communications, better roads and an improved crossing between the two banks of the river, again, much as I should like to think that I had responsibility, it is not something that lies within my power, and if he wants a satisfactory answer he must ask another Minister.
As to the large numbers of unemployed persons that my hon. Friend mentioned, I should point out to him, because it is very important, that it should be remembered that, although the figure, looked at over a period of years, seems to be almost identical, with little variation, when I tell him that 71.8 per cent. of them have been unemployed for less than 26 weeks and 42.8 per cent. have been unemployed for less than eight weeks it gives some idea of the change- 308 over that is taking place in the labour force. It is true that 17.8 per cent. of the older people are over 55, but even that is lower than the national average.
As to the future industrial expansion of Merseyside, there are, according to information supplied by the developers, 24,000 jobs in prospect, including 15,000 for males, over the next four years in authorised new buildings and existing buildings in the Merseyside development area and a further 5,600 jobs, including 3,800 for males, in the new towns of Skelmersdale and Winsford, where firms going there qualify for development incentive.
In 1970 alone the motor vehicle, chemical and allied and engineering and textile industries are expected to create more than 7,000 new jobs, of which about 70 per cent. are for males, in 20 separate expansions already known to the Department. The bulk of the jobs will be for skilled and semi-skilled operatives. I am sure that that expansion alone will create new work in the construction industry.
I do not know whether it would be possible for the wishes of my hon. Friend to be met in respect of a National Building Corporation, but anyone knowing the housing problem of Liverpool and the desperate need of countless thousands of people for decent homes must feel rather dismayed that at a time when the house building programme of the local authority ought to be going up it appears from the figures available to us that it is going down. If the house-building programme of the local authority, far from going up is going down, that in itself is bound to add to unemployment in the very skills to which my hon. Friend referred.
I would like to mention what has been done by the Government about the dispersal of Government offices. In line with our policy of dispersal and regional development, Merseyside has been chosen to receive large numbers of civil service jobs. Two new major offices are being allocated to Bootle. The national giro, which opened in October 1968, is now employing 2,360 people and may ultimately employ about 3,000. An Inland Revenue Schedule E computer centre is expected to come into operation in 1971, and that will provide about 2,500 jobs between 1971 and 1973. The work of over 450 posts in my Department is due to be transferred from Watford to Runcorn, starting in 1970, and in addition 309 moves by the Board of Trade Investment Grants Department, the Inland Revenue and the Charity Commission are bringing more than 400 extra jobs to Merseyside between now and 1970.
If we look at the problem in Merseyside that faced previous Governments, one thing that we can certainly say is that our regional development policy has been successful in Merseyside. Whilst it is true that in most development areas unemployment has remained at more than double the national average, and in the North-East well over double, in Merseyside it is only 1 ½ times the national average. I know that my hon. Friend will never be satisfied with that, but we are very anxious to improve the situation. It is indicative of our anxiety that we disregarded the Hunt Committee's Report and allowed Merseyside to remain scheduled, and that we have decided that Merseyside shall have available all the incentives that come from our regional policy.
My hon. Friend will also recognise that in the social legislation that we have introduced we have removed the worst evils of unemployment. He, like me, will have marched behind banners, the most prominent of which was "work or maintenance". We are often accused by 310 right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite of having introduced social benefits to the point where we have taken away the incentive to work. I believed in the principle that if we could not provide a man with a job we had a moral obligation to maintain him in something like decency. By and large we have achieved that, but that does not mean that we as a Government, or any of us as individuals, must remain satisfied so long as there is any man capable of work who is denied the right to work.
I assure my hon. Friend that, no matter how often he raises this matter, he will never offend me, because I am at one with him, and I think I can speak for the whole of the Government when I say that we want to see Merseyside, and every development area, sharing the same measure of prosperity that the more prosperous areas of the country are already enjoying.
§ The debate having continued for half an hour, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
§ Mr. SPEAKER suspended the sitting of the House at twenty-five minutes to Four o'clock a.m., till Ten o'clock this day, pursuant to Order.