§ 31. Mr. Wolrige-Gordonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what recent steps have been taken in co-operation with other Departments of State to attract new employment to Scotland.
§ Mr. Gordon CampbellWe have substantially improved the Local Employment Act assistance available, authorised an additional public works programme, now totalling £65 million, brought forward naval orders totalling £50 million and capital expenditure by some of the nationalised industries and provided for special assistance towards infrastructure improvement in West Central Scotland. We have created a large special development area in West Central Scotland where additional incentives are available to incoming industry and a new initiative has been launched to attract industrial investment to Scotland from Europe.
§ Mr. Wolrige-GordonWhile thanking my right hon. Friend for that reply, may I ask him whether he does not feel that one of the reasons why this array of measures—on which I congratulate him—has not yet worked to our satisfaction is that there is a limit on what the Government can achieve and more should be done to enlist the assistance of private enterprise in dealing with this problem? Could more consideration also be given to using unemployed men to help clear up the environment?
§ Mr. CampbellI entirely agree about the need to enlist the help of private as well as public industry in the effort which is being made. We are also engaged in work of the kind my hon. Friend has described to improve the environment.
§ Mr. Alexander WilsonWill the right hon. Gentleman finally realise that all his grandiose plans and promises over the last 12 months have simply resulted in worsening unemployment in West Central Scotland? Will he now determine that the unemployment rate in Scotland should be reduced? Does he realise that we do not want any more plans of grandiose 441 promises; we want jobs in Scotland and nothing else?
§ Mr. CampbellThe hon. Member knows that I am not given to making promises. [Interruption.] I am determined to do all that can be done to improve the unemployment situation which, unfortunately, exists in Scotland and which we deplore.
§ Mr. RossWhile the right hon. Gentleman says that he is not given to making promises, is he aware that he made one to me in the early summer, in this House, that the employment position would improve in Scotland by the end of this year? Since that time unemployment has increased by 30,000. When are we to get different policies?
§ Mr. CampbellIf the right hon. Gentleman looks up what I said he will see that I expressed the hope that employment would improve. He knows that the Government have taken enormous measures to put right a situation which the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues left us.
§ Mr. Gregor MackenzieIs the right hon. Gentleman aware that while we are anxious that he should bend his mind to the task of attracting new industry to Scotland, we are also most anxious that he should do all he can to keep the jobs that we have there at the moment? Should not the Government direct the nationalised industries in Scotland—which, after all, are the servants of the community and not the masters—to do all they can to safeguard the jobs of office workers at the British Steel Corporation's Tubes Division, Glasgow, and of railway workers in Ayrshire?
§ Mr. CampbellThe hon. Gentleman knows that these are matters on which decisions are being taken by the British Steel Corporation and British Railways.