§ Q5. Mr. John Fraserasked the Prime Minister if he will transfer from the Department of Employment to the Department of Health and Social Security the work of paying unemployment benefit and collecting unemployment statistics.
§ The Prime MinisterThe Department of Health and Social Security computer at Reading has, since July, 1969, been making payments of unemployment benefit by Giro order to claimants in the Reading area, and now does this work for 19 employment exchanges in London. The case for extending these arrangements on a national basis is under consideration. There are no plans to transfer responsibility for collecting unemployment statistics from the Department of Employment.
§ Mr. FraserWould the Prime Minister agree that, particularly with the staggering rise in unemployment under this Government, it could avoid a lot of wasteful duplication if the whole function were transferred throughout the country as 1673 quickly as possible, so that this Department can once again become a Department of Employment rather than of unemployment?
§ The Prime MinisterAs I have made plain in the answer, this very large area is being used at the moment in order to carry out these procedures, and we are examining whether they can properly be extended to the whole country. That relates to the question of the payments. There is no question of taking the statistical side from the Department of Employment.
§ Mr. ThorpeIs the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is less criticism of the method of payment of unemployment benefit and the gathering of statistics on unemployment than of the general level of unemployment? Can he not say whether he envisages that, in this year, the number of unemployed will go down, go up or remain static? What do the Government think will happen about unemployment?
§ The Prime MinisterThis Question is concerned with the collection of statistics, and the statistics will show.
§ Mr. Alfred MorrisDoes the right hon. Gentleman agree that the increasingly heavy incidence of unemployment among employable disabled people is a matter for very serious concern? Will he agree to have a further look at this deeply personal human problem?
§ The Prime MinisterYes, indeed I will. There was a Question about this a few weeks ago, in answer to which I said that it was unfortunate that the percentage of disabled unemployed is higher than that of the general population, and that a review is being made of this problem to see whether anything further can be done to help.