HC Deb 03 February 1971 vol 810 cc1645-7
6. Mr. Sillars

asked the Secretary of State for Scotland when he will next take the chair at the Scottish Economic Council.

10. Mr. Douglas

asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will discuss with the Scottish Economic Planning Council the gains and losses of jobs in Scotland since June, 1970.

Mr. Gordon Campbell

I regularly discuss employment and other economic issues of importance to Scotland with the Scottish Economic Council and I shall be doing so again when I preside at its next meeting on 5th February.

Mr. Sillars

Will the right hon. Gentleman give a categorical assurance on 5th February to the members of the Scottish Economic Council that by this time next year the number of Scottish unemployed will be well below 100,000?

Mr. Campbell

When I discuss this matter with the Scottish Economic Council in two days' time I shall be listening to the views of its members and receiving their advice on what can be done. I find it impossible at this stage to predict precisely what is likely to happen next winter. However, everybody on the Council will be helping me to try to make sure that this situation does not recur.

Mr. Douglas

While recognising the right hon. Gentleman's difficulty in making predictions for next winter, may I ask him, through the Scottish Economic Council and the Regional Economic Planning Board, to make public his estimate of the gains and losses in Scottish jobs between 1970 and 1975? Is he aware that his colleagues have made great play about mistaken estimates having been made in relation to manpower planning? Is he aware that it is time that he, bearing the responsibility in this matter, came clean and gave his estimates as soon as possible?

Mr. Campbell

What has happened is proof that making estimates of this kind is not a useful exercise. I remind the hon. Gentleman that the Labour Government estimated a net increase of 60,000 jobs in Scotland between 1964 and 1970. In the result, between March, 1966, and March, 1970, there was a net loss of 82,000 jobs.

Mr. Buchan

Is not the real point here the fact that hon. Gentlemen opposite—

Mr. MacArthur

My right hon. Friend has stated the real point.

Mr. Buchan

—do not understand the term "job loss" and use it wrongly on every occasion? Would the right hon. Gentleman give a simple answer to a simple question? How many members of the Scottish Economic Council advised him to change the system of incentives from grants to allowances?

Mr. Campbell

The answer to the first part of that supplementary question is that page 9 of the Labour Government's 1966 White Paper, from which I quoted, recorded the figures of job increases and losses. The answer to the second part, about the work of the Scottish Economic Council, is that in acocrdance with the arrangements made by the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross), its proceedings are confidential.