§ 5. Mr. John Smithasked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will state the number of redundancies reported to his Department in Scotland for each month, respectively, since June, 1970.
§ Mr. Dudley SmithAs the reply contains a table of figures, I will, with permission, circulate a statement in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
§ Mr. John SmithI am not surprised that the hon. Gentleman does not want to state publicly the appalling figures contained in his reply. Is he aware that a very large proportion of the 133,000 people unemployed in Scotland is made up of redundancies which have occurred since 1970. In view of the impending redundancies in the steel industry, for example, will the hon. Gentleman say what the Government propose to do to try to stop this appalling tide of redundancy in Scotland?
§ Mr. Dudley SmithThere is already a Question on the Order Paper about the steel industry. I should willingly give the figures if it would not incur the displeasure of the House. The table is a 799 very long one. However, the hon. Gentleman may like to know that the provisional total of the redundancies recorded for the first 10 months of this year is 46 per cent. lower than the figure for the corresponding period in 1971. He may also like to know that the very last figure, which is for October, was the second lowest since July, 1970.
Following is the information:
REDUNDANCIES RECORDED AS DUE TO OCCURIN SCOTLAND SINCE JUNE, 1970 Month Numbers becoming, redundant 1970—July 2,400 August 2,900 September 3,700 October 4,300 November 3,900 December 2,900 1971—January 4,100 February 3,600 March 7,200 April 3,300 May 3,000 June 3,400 July 3,600 August 2,300 September 3,200 October 3,600 November 2,000 December 3,500 1972—January 2,600 February 2,100 March 2,100 April 2,500 May 2,300 June 1,700 July 3,000 August 1,000 September 1,700 (provisional) October 1,100 (provisional)