§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Hawkins.]
§ 12.10 a.m.
§ Mr. Donald Stewart (Western Isles)I am glad to have the opportunity to speak in the House about the problem of unemployment in the Western Isles. This is not a problem which has arisen only since the last election. As the Under-Secretary will appreciate, I say that not to absolve the Government of their responsibilities in any way but to point out that this problem is one of long duration. It has existed at least throughout my lifetime. It has been chronic and endemic for a long time.
In the last year, the average figure for unemployment was 25 per cent. There has been a slight improvement lately, but hon. Members will realise the serious situation that would exist in Britain if that level of unemployment were spread throughout every constituency in the country.
Even that shocking statistic does not reveal the true position. There are about 553 1,000 weavers in the Harris tweed industry who are not classed as employed persons. I shall approach the Government later with a view to rectifying the cruel travesty by which these weavers are classed as self-employed persons.
The full immensity of the problem is also masked by emigration. For lack of opportunity, the Hebridean must leave the island of his birth in search of work. Permanent "clearances" are operating in the Western Isles every year. Since the turn of the century every census has shown a fall in the population of each island. For some reason, in one of the islands there was a slight increase in 1951, but that was the only increase in population in any of the islands of the Western Isles at any census since 1901. The Highlands and Islands Development Board, in its 1969 report, said that another 400 had left in that year, and I believe that, when the figures are available, the coming census will show that the trend of a falling population continues.
The passion for education in the Western Isles also acts against us. From the islands we send to the universities more students per head of the population than any other part of Britain. This testimony to the intelligence of the people means that they must perforce work other than in the land of their birth. Once they obtain qualifications, they must, because of the lack of opportunity, place their skills other than in their homeland.
The building trade in Scotland is in a serious condition. Nearly a fifth of the unemployment is accounted for by the building trade. In the Western Isles we find no exception to this rule. In Stornoway the situation is extremely serious. It is made worse by the fact that when builders in the Isles are out of work, they leave the Isles to look for work and very seldom can be induced to return. It is difficult enough to encourage industry to come to the Western Isles, but local enterprise has also been throttled by lunatic restrictions.
For instance, I know of a new venture in Harris, an island which has been extremely hard hit. A new textile company was set up. Looms were purchased in Yorkshire. Because the company has been brought into existence locally, it must pay for the transportation of these 554 looms from the town in Yorkshire where they were purchased. Had it been a case of a company coming from Yorkshire, the freight charges would have been borne by the grants available. We are bedevilled by a transport system with abnormally high freight charges. It is essential that this barrier to development and a reasonable cost of living should be given high priority by the Scottish Office, with a view to removing or reducing substantially the burden on us.
The effect of the Highlands and Islands Development Board has been minimal in the Western Isles. I have told the present chairman that, in the first few years of the Board's existence, it appears to me to have had a mainly mainland orientation, and I am not alone in that view. Apart from the Outer Islands Fishery Scheme, which the Board took over after it was instituted by the previous Conservative Government, we see little sign of the Board's operation in the Western Isles.
Although we have not benefited under the Board to the extent that other parts of the Highlands have, every penny has been welcome. But the Board's expenditure must be kept in perspective. It has been pointed out recently that its total expenditure in the Highlands in the first five years was equal to the cost of eight miles of motorway. When the Scottish Trades Union Congress was demanding the setting up of such a hoard, it talked in terms of an expenditure of £250 million, spread over 10 years, it is true. That is the kind of financial backing that the Board should have had when it was set up.
I have said in the House before that no Government, whatever their colour, have made a real effort to grapple with the problem of unemployment in the Western Isles. But I am waiting for a sign of the will and desire to tackle the problem.
I make the following suggestions. The first one concerns a programme of public works. The hon. Gentleman may think that this is an easy answer, but public works are essential, and many of them are long overdue in the Western Isles. We suffer many disabilities from the lack of works which should have been carried out not years but generations ago in some cases. I suggest, for instance, that 555 the road from Rodel to Stornoway, instead of being done in instalments, should be done at once as one unit. It is necessary to transport goods from the ferry landing at Rodel to Stornoway. There is also an urgent need for a new main road in North and South Uist.
To assist the building trade, much urgently needed building should go ahead now. I have in mind schools, for example.
Then there are water schemes. I understand from the county councils of Inverness-shire and Ross-shire that there are schemes in the offing. I hope that the Scottish Office will look at them with favour.
More finance should be given to the H.I.D.B., and its powers should be increased. If it proves impossible to get the development to come north on the scale that we require, the solution is to allow the Board to initiate schemes of its own.
Another possibility is the return of the Stranraes-Larne ferry to the Scottish Transport Group. This ferry, operating on the west coast, was kept out of the Group. It earned £700,000 in 1968. That profit should go into the pool for the benefit of the whole west coast. Instead of giving this profitable section of west coast sea transport away to British Railways and leaving the other islands under the nationalised system, many of them running at a loss, the whole should be one. This might result in a more reasonable level of freight charges.
Then the Government might consider the abolition or reduction of income tax for a stated period. This may seem a romantic notion. This device has been tried elsewhere with good effect. The Government should set their mind to looking at the possibilities. In any case, we pay the same tax as the rest of the country for many services which we do not enjoy.
I want to record my support for the five-point plan put forward recently by Sir John Toothill. The hon. Gentleman will be aware of the details. Sir John said, "Why not, for a change, try stimulation instead of restriction?" I echo this for the Western Isles. Most areas in Scotland are needful, some more than others, but my constituency, on the 556 facts, is the neediest of all. I call on the Government to do their duty.
§ 12.21 a.m.
§ Mr. Hamish Gray (Ross and Cromarty)I am grateful for the opportunity of contributing to the debate. I should like to associate myself with what was said by the hon. Member for the Western Isles (Mr. Donald Stewart). He has made a good case for his constituency and I hope that the Under-Secretary will take note of the points which he has raised.
I should like to mention my constituency, Ross and Cromarty, neighbouring the Western Isles. While we do not have quite the same problems, our unemployment rate has risen considerably over the past months, and this worries all of us.
I suggest that one way that the position could be assisted would be the speeding up of planning procedures. Recently the Scottish Office announced that the new extension to the A.9 north of Inverness would include the bridging of the two Firths. Under present methods, it seems that this will take a considerable time. My constituency needs some immediate steps to be taken to alleviate unemployment. Anything which can be done by the Scottish Office to improve and speed the planning procedures would be welcomed. Under present methods, it is unlikely that any start will be made before 1973. I should like to see this situation improved handsomely. I do not anticipate any objection in my area to the proposed new line of the A.9 north of Inverness. Ross and Cromarty should stand as an example to the rest of the country in the speeding up of planning procedures.
I should like to think that we would produce something in place of the investment grant system, which was not a success in the Highlands. We had only one major project, and the capital amount spent on it was out of all proportion to the number of jobs produced. I hope that we shall come forward with an alternative to take the place of the investment grant system.
I believe that every encouragement must be given to the Highlands and Islands Development Board to produce new functions and ways of attracting industry to the Highlands.
§ 12.24 a.m.
§ The Under-Secretary of State for Home Affairs and Agriculture, Scottish Office (Mr. Alick Buchanan-Smith)I congratulate the hon. Member for the Western Isles (Mr. Donald Stewart) on obtaining this Adjournment debate. I confess that from his position I always envied those who got such an opportunity to raise particular points relating to their constituencies. With the pressure that there is on Adjournment debates, those who get them are very fortunate. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on the way that he has used his opportunity and thank him for the moderate and constructive way in which he put forward his points.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Gray) for intervening. I have certainly taken note of what he said. But it is to what was said by the hon. Member for the Western Isles that I want to direct my remarks.
I share the hon. Gentleman's concern about unemployment in the Western Isles. He said, quite rightly, that this is not a new problem. There was a marginal improvement in 1970, but no one can be satisfied with that when the absolute level is so high.
The statistics of unemployment in the Western Isles, compared with those of areas further south, show that comparisons are not easy. The official rate does not reflect the true situation, because it includes self-employed weavers who do not qualify for unemployment benefits but must register as a condition of receiving supplementary benefits. So they appear in the unemployment figure but not the total figure of Class I employees in the area. The percentage rate is based on the numbers of registered unemployed against the numbers of Class I employees, so this could lead to the situation sometimes being over-stated. I do not say this to belittle the situation, and it is no comfort to those out of work, but it is not always borne in mind in statistical comparisons.
The Government are not complacent about this any more than they are about the migration from the area. Although there has been consistently high unemployment in Lewis and Harris, the migration rate has been lower than in other 558 parts of 'the Highlands and Islands. What is disturbing is the high rate of loss of younger people, which of course, unfortunately unbalances the age structure.
The hon. Member's main question related to the public works programme and the way in which it could help unemployment. This background of unemployment and migration naturally leads to suggestions of a crash programme, which the hon. Member has campaigned hard for. But the Under-Secretary of State for Development, in a letter, told the hon. Member that the Government's view, on this and other problems, is that our first economic priority is to get the whole country on as firm a footing as possible, as quickly as possible. Our conclusions on these major questions of investment are in our two White Papers on investment incentives under the new public spending policies.
We must consider the problem of the Western Isles against this general background. The difficulties there must be tackled on a number of fronts. The emphasis should be on the development of activities which fall naturally into the economic life of the area. This does not mean that public works are being neglected. I have taken note of the hon. Member's suggestions of schemes which he would like pressed forward. Already there is a fairly ambitious scheme of roads, new education buildings and water schemes. For instance, the Tarbert—Rodel road in Harris is under way in the final stage at a cost of £260,000. There is also the construction of new primary schools at Crowlista and Gravir, costing £76,000 and £78,000, respectively. As the hon. Member knows, it is hoped to make a start next year on the Nicholson Institute, Stornoway, at a cost of £185,000.
The hon. Member also mentioned water schemes, on which he put a Question to my hon. Friend on 17th March. The House should know that during the last nine months we have approved seven schemes costing £250.000. It is also worth remembering that these schemes attract the maximum rate of grant for schemes of this type of 75 per cent. It is also a point of interest that during the last eight years, no scheme which has been put forward has been rejected by the Government. As we all know. 559 the initiative for applying for and starting water schemes must rest with the water boards in the areas concerned.
When one adds up all these different schemes of public works, in roads, education and water, one finds that sums of upwards of £½ million are being spent in the Western Isles. Obviously, one would like to see more being spent, and the hon. Member is right to draw attention to this. At the same time, I do not think that he would chide me for describing for the sake of the record exactly what has been done.
What really concerns us is the question of new industries. Obviously, it is of paramount importance to get new jobs which can help to meet the unemployment situation. Equally, as, I am sure, the hon. Member will admit, this is not a task which the Government themselves can carry out directly. The key decisions are what to make and how to sell it, and these are essentially matters for the private promoter. The job of the Government in this, as in other areas, is to provide the general climate and the machinery by which promoters are encouraged to establish new industries.
The attraction of new industries to areas is a matter for any development agency which exists in those areas and for the local authorities. For the Highlands and Islands, the main development agency is the Highlands and Islands Development Board, which has considerable funds and powers. I should like to put firmly on record that we are right behind the Board in the work that it is doing and we will give it every support we can to solve the difficult problems which have been described tonight. As the lion. Member knows, the powers for development of the Highlands and Islands Development Board, both in terms of finance and direct powers, are greater than those in any other development area. The rate of grant which it can give is also extremely high.
The hon. Member expressed the view that the Western Isles had been neglected to some extent by the Highlands and Islands Development Board and that it was more mainland orientated. I should like to give him one important statistic. In the Western Isles, assistance which has been approved to date by the Board amounts to £41 per head of population. 560 This compares with a figure for the mainland of Ross and Cromarty of £26 per head of population, and for the whole of the area of the Highlands and Islands Development Board of £32 per head. I agree that a per head sum like this does not tell the whole story, but it indicates that the Highlands and Islands Development Board has certainly not ignored everything concerning the Western Isles.
While we obviously want to see the Board encouraging new industry to the Islands what I hope we shall see also, as we have already in the Harris tweed industry and fishing, is a considerable amount of local enterprise. I think it most important. There is a great deal of scope for local enterprise. The hon. Gentleman mentioned some of the problems and penalties of remoteness and distance from the mainland, but that remoteness and distance, it seems to me, can itself create opportunities for local enterprise. One thing which has never ceased to amaze me about the Western Isles is that all the bread—or a great deal of it, anyway—is brought in from Glasgow. I have often reflected that in this one, comparatively minor, field there is scope for individual local enterprise in the form of a bakery. That is just an idea I throw out. There is scope for local enterprise, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will agree with me that one of the strongest form of enterprise is that which comes from those who have their roots in the locality.
What worries us at the present time is the situation in relation to the Harris tweed industry. The Highland Board and the Government are very concerned over the duration of the current recession in the industry. Having discussed it with those concerned in the industry, the board has decided to make a study, as the hon. Gentleman knows, of the future of Harris tweed. This study will seek all means of improving, expanding and diversifying the industry. I personally hope that it will be very helpful.
In talking about industry one point I should like to make is about, of course, the fishing industry, in which I have a particular interest. As the House knows, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has authorised the Highland Board to continue for a further year, and on 561 roughly the same lines, the comprehensive fisheries development scheme. A further expansion of the scheme will be the subject of review within the year. What it means is that in the current year the Board can be expected, in respect of the Highlands and Islands area as a whole, to give loans to new entrants for the purchase of about seven new inshore fishing boats, supplementing the White Fish Authority's and Herring Industry Board's grants, and also loans to experienced fishermen, enabling them to purchase about 30 inshore boats, and also loans which will cover about the same number of shell fish and sea angling boats. Some idea of the impact of the scheme can be gathered from the fact that while in 1966 there were 26 boats of over 40 ft. registered in the Western Isles the number in 1970 was 52.
There have been benefits from the increased catches, which have been very marked, and it is interesting that landings in Stornoway increased in value from £113,000 in 1966 to £239,000 in 1969.
I am very hopeful, too, of the fish processing plant, which has hitherto been run by the Highland Board under the name Gaelfish but is now continuing under the ownership of Rolf Olsen. I wish it every success. It is a basis of industry in the area. Then, as the hon. Gentleman knows, there is the proposed hotel scheme on Barra, and there are a number of minor schemes as well.
The subject of the debate has been unemployment. There is no doubt that for those who are unemployed the needs at present and the immediate future are 562 very real indeed—in the levels of activity in the Harris tweed industry and in the construction industry. This particularly relates to what the hon. Gentleman said about public works and factories. What we are looking forward to is a much more hopeful situation in providing employment in construction, and one of the hopeful factors in providing additional employment is afforded by the rocket range at Benbecula, and others by the tourist and fishing industries. Other hopeful factors are the determination of the Highland Board, and the growing interest of local authorities in the problem, as evidenced, for example, by the appointment by Ross and Cromarty County Council of a development officer, to study economic development.
In thanking the hon. Gentleman again for raising this debate I assure him that we shall give the Board and the county council all the support we can in carrying forward schemes which are in hand and new schemes in future in helping to resolve the very real problems which his constituents have to face.
Mr. Tam Dallyell (West Lothian)rose—
§ The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock on Wednesday evening, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
§ Adjourned at twenty minutes to One o'clock.