HC Deb 10 April 1972 vol 834 cc826-7
3. Mr. Gower

asked the Secretary of State for Wales what is his estimate of the effects of proposed budgetary changes on the Welsh economy during the next 12 months; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Peter Thomas

The Government's budgetary and new regional measures provide a most powerful and comprehensive programme to stimulate industrial and regional development and should substantially further the economic growth of the Principality.

Mr. Gower

Is it not a fact that the general reduction in taxation will help consumer spending, that the reduction in purchase tax will help a number of Welsh industries and that the new changes, added to the financial measures which were available before, give my right hon. and learned Friend a battery of measures to assist him in his efforts to promote regional development in the Principality?

Mr. Peter Thomas

Yes. My hon. Friend is quite right. It has been accepted, I think, as the biggest and best ever Budget.

Mr. John

Does not the right hon. and learned Gentleman recollect that at every Welsh Question Time during the last year he has been telling us how marvellous the regional incentives then were? How can he, with an agility which is foreign to his nature, come forward as an advocate of policies diametrically opposed to those which he was commending to the House before?

Mr. Peter Thomas

The hon. Gentleman is quite wrong. The policies are not diametrically opposed.

Mr. John

Allowances, not grants?

Mr. Peter Thomas

Grants were used by this Government. Building grants were used. Grants which are now proposed by the Budget are limited as a differential for the development areas and are an extension of the policies of this Government. My hon. Friend is quite right—that my right hon. Friend's Budget was a tremendous Budget, in particular in comparison with Budgets by the previous Administration.

Mr. George Thomas

In view of the fact that in the past 18 months unemployment has risen by over 60 per cent. in Wales and that jobs in prospect have been reduced to a trickle and juvenile employment is at its peak, can the Secretary of State say when he expects to make inroads in our unemployment figures, especially since we are now bereft of his much-boasted influence as Chairman of the Conservative Party?

Mr. Peter Thomas

As the right hon. Gentleman will appreciate, the proposals which have been made as a whole add up to the most powerful national and regional development policy, the most powerful ever applied in this country, and they will undoubtedly help Wales. Obviously, one cannot give figures as to when unemployment will be reduced, but, equally obviously, these measures will help relieve the employment situation in Wales.