§ Motion made, and Question proposed. That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Hawkins.]
§ 1.47 a.m.
§ Mr. Michael McGuire (Ince)This is an important subject concerning the problems of unemployment in Skelmersdale new town, which I am happy to have the opportunity to raise, albeit at this late, or early, hour in the morning. Before turning to the main matters with which I wish to deal, perhaps I ought to say something about the background and history of the new town.
Skelmersdale new town was designated by the Tory Government in 1961 and the development corporation was established early in 1962. The officers and the chief officials were chosen in July of that year. The total acreage of the new town is just over 4,000. The new town was designed to relieve the tremendous social and economic problems of Liverpool. People from North Mersey-side have been encouraged and recruited to come to Skelmersdale new town. The town was grafted on to an old mining town, the Skelmersdale urban district, and a town with strong mining connections; namely, the urban district of Up-holland. These two towns have since 1968 been amalgamated into the Urban District of Skelmersdale and Upholland, and I am pleased to say that following the last elections the Labour Party is in control of the new town.
The population was at one time just over 10,000; its present population is about 30,000, and the new town element of that is about 20,000 and is growing rapidly. There are about 50 firms in the area employing about 7,000 people.
I have had difficulty in finding the exact figure of unemployment in the Skelmersdale new town area. Skelmersdale is linked for D.E.P. administrative 845 purposes with Ormskirk to form the Ormskirk and Skelmersdale travel-to-work area. The figure for unemployment of this combined area in May, 1971, was 4.8 per cent. However, this hides the true figure in the Skelmersdale area, which I calculate at about 6.3 per cent., but which some people say is higher and should be 8 per cent.
I calculate this figure by taking the insured working population figure, which I believe is the basis for calculating unemployment figures, of 8,156 in 1969. I have added to that an assumed increase in the working population of about 900 a year. Rounding off the figure for the insured working population in Skelmersdale, I reach 10,000. Dividing that by the unemployed figure of 627, one gets a figure of 6.3 per cent. However, because that does not include many hundreds of women who do not pay the full insurance stamp, those who claim that the figure is nearer 8 per cent. have good grounds for so claiming.
What about jobs in the pipeline? I believe, from the calculations which I have made and the discussions I have had with responsible people, that the jobs in the pipeline will not satisfy the needs of those who are already unemployed and those who are every week being encouraged to come into the town.
The greatest tragedy is that, probably for the first time in the new town's history, there will be almost a full complement of school leavers this summer. I understand that there will be about 220 to 240 school leavers coming on the town's labour market this year. There are very few jobs for them. It is estimated that only about 40 will be employed within the new town.
A lot of shift work is done in Skelmersdale, and, because of the restrictions concerning the employment of young people under 18 on shift work, there will be little opportunity for them to go into many of these jobs.
I realise that the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Under-Secretary, hearing me speak of a figure of 6.3 per cent. or even 8 per cent., will wonder why I am making a din about what to him is probably a puny figure compared with his native province. My point is that this is an artificially created town, which everybody wants to succeed, and it has 846 now got an artificially enlarged schools population because we have encouraged young families to go there. In other words, the Government are creating the problem and only by positive action can they help. Nobody expects the Government to wave a magic wand which will cure all the problems not only for Skelmersdale but for the nation. However, I think that there are two or three positive things which they can do.
Recently, because of closures of firms which were seemingly well established we have lost about 550 jobs. The people there know that there has been a cut back in the expansion programmes of some firms, and they need a morale booster. One way of providing that boost is by the Secretary of State for Social Services announcing publicly the acceptance of the recommendation of the Liverpool Hospital Board that Skelmersdale new town is the best place in that area for a new hospital. That has not been announced officially, and I should like it to be because it would be a morale booster for the town. I have corresponded with the Minister on this subject, and I have asked Questions about it, and I hope that that will be done.
Second, the Government Department which is investigating the dispersal of Government officers, and the Minister responsible, should announce that because of the special problems of Skelmersdale a new Government Department will be established there. That would be the second morale booster. There is a desperate shortage of skilled employed in the area. There is very little outlet on the skilled clerical side, which now includes the use of computers, and so on, and if such an outlet were established there, people would be encouraged to invest in the new town.
The Government should make a serious study of why there is this lack of skilled employment in the area. The sad thing about one of the cut-backs in Skelmersdale is that the only big engineering firm, Dewrance, is not going ahead with its expansion programme. It has had to make a cut back, and although the number of people involved is not large, I regard the position as serious.
The people of Skelmersdale have become a bit demoralised because they have seen the loss of jobs in what were established firms. They also received a 847 severe blow when Pilkington decided not to invest there. The decision by Pilkington to go to Skelmersdale was all but signed, but not sealed and delivered, and the firm has now moved to Wrexham. That is a blow from which the new town will reel for many a day.
I read the other day that the new process invented by Pilkington, which will be more profitable than float glass, would be used for manufacture at Wrexham. When one considers the fantastic success which the new process will have, one realises what a blow the decision to set up the plant in Wrexham has been to Skelmersdale.
That gives me the opportunity to rebut what is said to be one of the reasons why Pilkington did not move into the new town. It was suggested that there might be labour relations trouble if the firm went there. It was said that because 80 per cent. of our labour force comes from North Merseyside, inevitably there would be tremendous industrial relations problems. The fact is—and I have checked this with industrialists and with the new town corporation—that the labour relations record in Skelmersdale is excellent, so much so that one of the firms that went out of business, Genyk, told the development corporation that its failure was in no way due to trouble with the people it employed. It could not give them enough praise. It said that the people had done everything possible to sustain it. This is the verdict of many other people, who come into the new town a little apprehensively but after a while realise that they have nothing to fear. So I am pleased to be able to make this complete rebuttal.
This change in attitude of the Liverpool people is not because they have become any less militant but because a change of environment, with modern factories and houses, better conditions, better opportunities and brighter prospects, seemingly at any rate, for their children percolates through to the personality of the worker, and he does not have the same reasons to rebel, except against his employers, for good cause. This must have contributed towards a very good result, that the Liverpool worker in Skelmersdale is as responsible as the good worker anywhere else.
848 I hope that I have not painted too black a picture; that was certainly not my intention. One can be indicted in these circumstances for raising a scare and frightening people off. The problems are too great, and the greatest danger would have been to say nothing. I believe that people came from North Merseyside encouraged by the Tory Government of 1961–64 and the Labour Government of 1964–70, and still encouraged—rightly, I believe—by this Government.
We have a responsibility to them. They came expecting better prospects for themselves and their children. By doing some of the simplest things that I have mentioned, the Government can ensure that better, richer life to which they look forward and which they have a right to expect. That is why I have been delighted to raise this subject tonight.
§ 2.2 a.m.
§ The Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Nicholas Ridley)I am sure that the hon. Member for Ince (Mr. McGuire) has done a service to his constituents by raising this matter tonight. I thought he did it in a measured and moderate fashion, without exaggeration or painting too black a picture. I was glad to hear him acknowledge the importance of not talking down an area in an attempt to talk it up. We would all feel that Skelmersdale has made a great start in life, has great promise for the future and has been one of the most successful new towns, and that his tributes to the town and the people who live there were quite right.
Nevertheless, there has been a setback in employment. The hon. Members figures were right. The figure for the Ormskirk travel-to-work area is now 4.8 per cent.—6.2 per cent. for males only—but this represents a slight drop from last month. We should take what encouragement we can from that. This is against a national percentage in the same month of 3.3 per cent. and a percentage for the North-West region of 3.7 per cent. and a percentage for the Merseyside development area of 5T per cent.
These figures are above the national average, but, as the hon. Member fairly acknowledged, they are nothing like as high as in some parts of the country. I entirely accept that the fact that some people are unemployed is a hardship on 849 those people, and whether the number is large or small, it is still a hardship. But one has to keep this matter in perspective. The 600-odd people whom he quoted as being unemployed in the new town itself are quite a small number compared to the massive problems in some other parts of the country.
I should explain why we use the travel to work area, in this case the Ormskirk area. It is not to mask the figures in any part of the area. It is simply that it is the area over which people travel to work, and the natural flow of people from homes to employment is obviously the unit which must be taken if we are to make sensible decisions about regional policy.
It would be possible to isolate tiny pockets with very high unemployment, but I do not believe that it is meaningful to try to cure a problem of this kind on the basis of small areas, and for this reason the Department is right to employ the travel to work area basis. However, I emphasise that this is in no sense done with the idea of masking the problem, of which we are aware.
§ Mr. McGuireI appreciate what the hon. Gentleman is saying about the need to obtain figures in a systematic way, but in a situation like this, when Ormskirk's figure is 3 per cent. and Skelmersdale's is between 6 per cent. and 8 per cent., is it not possible to concentrate the solution of the problem on Skelmersdale instead of spreading the help over the whole area too thinly?
§ Mr. RidleyI do not think one can divide the country into tiny areas and make some development areas and others not in the way the hon. Gentleman describes. One must take areas of a reasonable size, and it is not practicable to divide areas into smaller portions because one portion has a figure of 2 per cent. or 3 per cent. higher than another.
As the hon. Gentleman pointed out, there have been two closures in Skelmersdale, the Genyk Company and the British East Light Company. These have caused the loss of several hundred jobs. If those closure had not taken place, it might have been argued that Ormskirk was in a worse position than Skelmersdale. One cannot change the development area 850 status of areas from week to week, as would be implied from what he suggested.
These two closures have given added point to the problem and show how important it is not only to get new factories to an area but to ensure that the businesses are viable and can survive chill economic winds when they blow, as they have been blowing for the last year and more. The Government were, therefore, absolutely right to concentrate their aid on firms that were likely to be viable and able to withstand economic blizzards, rather than firms which might not be able to survive these difficulties.
One must remember that wage inflation is still causing havoc—
§ Mr. Ridley—and it is still possible that firms will be priced out of the market, and more closures will result.
The hon. Gentleman referred to the Pilkington factory. I appreciate that it would have been a great asset to his area, but, equally, it is a great asset to the area where it has gone. This, of course, introduces the concept of competition between development areas, which are all needing employment, to offer facilities and a record of good industrial relations and co-operation to attract plum businesses.
I was glad to hear from the hon. Gentleman that the record of strikes and industrial relations is so good in Skelmersdale, and I am sure that that will help to attract new industries and businesses. The town has great opportunities. It has all the development area incentives in an area which is not getting assistance because it is not itself a development area. It not merely has the incentives which give it 40 per cent. of the initial tax allowance on buildings and a 45 per cent. building grant. It receives loans under the Local Employment Acts, and the new training initiative announced by my right hon. Friend will apply in Skelmersdale. Investment grants have been replaced by free depreciation on plant and machinery, which will be a great help to industrialists moving into the area. I cannot answer the hon. Gentleman on the question of the hospital, but I will draw the attention of my right hon. Friend to his remarks and I hope that he will be able to give the hon. Gentleman the good news which he seeks, though I have no 851 knowledge of what is the answer to the siting of that hospital.
I will also draw the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary responsible for Civil Service matters to the question of whether there will be a possibility of a Government Department being sited in Skelmersdale, though there is a much greater number of candidates for Government offices than the number of Government offices, especially mobile ones, and the chances are never as encouraging as the areas would like.
Another great asset of Skelmersdale is its closeness to the motorway and good communications with Liverpool. It has many other amenities. It is a nice, bright, new town, and the New Town Corporation has achieved a great deal in the 10 years which it has been at work. The population has grown from 10,000 in 1962 to about 30,000 at present. In that brief space of time the Corporation has provided nearly 7,000 new jobs, over 4,000 of which are for males. This comprises 59 new firms in 80 factory units, and there are four new factories available for renting and seven under construction. That is a record of very rapid growth and increase in job opportunities. I am happy to tell the hon. Gentleman that the jobs in prospect seem to be equally hopeful.
In the period January, 1969, to January, 1971, 31 industrial development certificates were granted for the travel-to-work area and they produced 2,580 jobs. At present—this is a separate figure—there are between 2,000 and 3,000 jobs in prospect, mostly for men, over the next three or four years. This figure does not include jobs in service industries and expansions in existing firms, about which my Department has no knowledge.
Over 5,000 houses have been completed and more than 1,000 are now under construction, so no one can deny that the town is thriving and expanding and has great potential for future industrial development. The town will be much sought after by industrialists.
852 The hon. Gentleman called for better plans of employment. The matter has arisen in the past because many unskilled or semi-skilled people came from Liverpool to settle in the town. In a sense, one could say that it is very fortunate that so many jobs have been provided for unskilled men. In many areas the employment problem is among the unskilled when there is often at the same time a shortage of skilled people. It is again a plus point for the new town that it has managed to employ so many people without skills. But I accept that it would be a good thing if more skilled jobs could be introduced. If there were a computer centre, a Government office or more service industries this would help the balance in the town. I am sure that the Development Corporation will do its best in that area, as will my Department, in bringing the site to the attention of any potential developer. The halving of S.E.T. and its eventual abolition will make this more attractive. There are great opportunities there of which I hope firms will take account. School-leavers will be coming on to the labour market, and this will help rather than hinder. Industrialists and businessmen tend to settle where they consider that there is the right quality and quantity of labour for their businesses.
The development of the town should be capably and successfully continued by the Corporation. The town has a great future. It is in a difficult patch lately. One might call this a hiccup in its growth. Everyone wants to see it assuming its potential development in employment.
In the House tonight the hon. Gentleman has done a service to the town in drawing its attractions to the public's attention. I am sure that his efforts will be rewarded in due course.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at sixteen minutes past Two o'clock.