§ 1. Mr. Goldingasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry whether he will now designate North Staffordshire as an intermediate area.
§ The Minister for Industrial Development (Mr. Christopher Chataway)I hope to reply shortly to the representations put by the hon. Member and his colleagues to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State on 27th November.
§ Mr. GoldingWill the right hon. Gentleman bear particularly in mind the fact that the unemployment rate in Newcastle-under-Lyme is 4.2 per cent.? Will he bear in mind also that as South Cheshire has been deemed an intermediate area jobs are being lost from North Staffordshire by my constituents because of the removal of work to Winsford?
§ Mr. ChatawayI shall bear in mind what the hon. Genitleman has said, but no doubt he knows that during the last 10 years unemployment in the area has been running at or below the monthly average for Great Britain as a whole. In 1971 and for the first 10 months of 1972 it was again lower than the average for the United Kingdom.
§ Mr. AshleyIs the right hon. Gentleman aware that North Staffordshire needs three guarantees urgently: first, that the Shelton steelworks will not be closed; secondly, that its industry will be diversified; and thirdly, that the area will be granted intermediate status in view of the threatened decline of some of its major industries? Will the right hon. Gentle- 880 man give those assurances today in order to demonstrate that he believes that prevention is better than cure?
§ Mr. ChatawayThe hon. Gentleman will know that I cannot anticipate any statement about steel investment, but I shall bear in mind what he has said. I am sure he will have taken encouragement from the substantial decline in the unemployment figures over recent months.