HC Deb 11 November 1971 vol 825 cc1204-6
7. Mr. Douglas

asked the Secretary of State for Employment what estimates his Department has made of the effects on the levels of unemployment of labour-intensive industries, for example ship-building, of the ending of the regional employment premium in 1974.

The Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Robert Carr)

The Regional Employment Premium is only one of a number of measures to help employment in the development areas and it is impossible to estimate the effect of any one measure in isolation.

Mr. Douglas

Would the right hon. Gentleman care to publish any correspondence between himself and ship-building companies about the way in which they might be discounting the effects of the R.E.P. in their quotations for ships at present?

Mr. Carr

I think that I am right to treat correspondence with me personally as confidential to the correspondents. Under our policy, R.E.P. is continuing, for the full seven years for which it was introduced, because we felt that it was right to keep that pledge made by the previous Government. But our attitude to it is that it is not the most effective way of spending £106 million a year in helping employment in the development areas.

Mrs. Knight

Can my right hon. Friend say anything about the possible beneficial effects on the shipbuilding industry of orders to build frigates to send to South Africa, as we were honourably committed to do under the Simonstown Agreement?

Mr. Carr

My hon. Friend's question is not one for me, but she and the House will know that we have recently announced naval orders of great importance for employment, particularly in the Clyde area. My hon. Friend the Minister of State for Defence Procurement will no doubt give the House the details.

Mr. Simon Mahon

Is the Minister aware that not only are we worried about shipbuilding but that in Liverpool and Merseyside we are worried about the declining state of the ship repair industry? We gave up the greatest and largest graving dock in this country—the Gladstone Graving Dock in Liverpool—to facilitate a temporary-container berth. As the new £40 million Seaforth Container Dock is nearly completed, can the right hon. Gentleman promise us that our graving dock will revert to its normal use?

Mr. Carr

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman knows that he is asking me questions on matters for which I am not responsible, though I know of the concern felt. It is perhaps worth pointing out that the total number employed in shipbuilding and ship repair has increased slightly in the past 12 months, and not decreased, as so many people seem to think.