EMPLOYMENT (SCOTLAND)

HC Deb 26 February 1973 vol 851 cc1071-151

3.45 p.m.

Mr. William Ross (Kilmarnock)

I beg to move, That this House, deploring the fact that there has been in Scotland the longest continuous period of high unemployment since the war, condemns Her Majesty's Government for failing to honour the assurances given by the Prime Miinster in Dundee on 9th September 1969 that a Tory Government would "act to bring new life to areas suffering from high unemployment

Mr. Speaker

I would inform the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister and his right hon. Friends—to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof: deeply concerned with the problem of unemployment in Scotland, welcomes the fall of 27,000 in the seasonally adjusted number of unemployed in Scotland since February 1972 and commends Her Majesty's Government for the success which their policies are achieving.

Mr. Ross

If there is anything in this motion that strikes a chord of memory in the minds of hon. Members opposite, they should not be dismayed. Right down to the words "Prime Minister", it is exactly the same as a motion moved by the present Home Secretary in the spring of 1970, applicable to the whole United Kingdom.

It was not true then about Scotland, but, sadly, the figures and the facts speak for themselves. In Scotland, we have always feared that, one day, we would reach the figure of 100,000 unemployed. This Government reached it in December 1970, and in no month since then has the figure dropped below that total.

That is not, of course, the Government's only achievement—the trouble with the Minister is that he is always looking up the facts and statistics. The fact is that the February figure—we welcome the fact that it shows a substantial decrease but we would still point out that that decrease masks a change in the unemploy- ment figures in that, for the first time, at the end of the Christmas holidays, about 20,000 schoolchildren who would have left school and come on to the labour market were retained in school. This has a double effect. First, being in school, they are not likely to be unemployed. Second, those who were unemployed school leavers—I am sorry to say that there are still some, who left school at the summer holiday—have a better chance of finding work. So let us not be too complacent about the drop as compared with a year before. A year before, I think, the figure was 217,700, but that included 70,000 who were temporarily stopped because of the miners' strike.

The actual drop from the year before is about 28,000, and from the month before it is just over 9,000. From that latter figure, one has to deduct those adult students who went back to university without finding a job, which cuts the figure down to 6,900. It is substantial, but it still leaves us with the figure of 123,000 unemployed. According to my reckoning, apart from last year, this is the highest figure for February since 1963, when hon. Members opposite were also in control, and the second worst since the end of the war.

Let no one be complacent that there are 120,000 unemployed in Scotland. That figure contrasts with the promise given by the Prime Minister in Dundee on 9th September 1969: We refuse to condemn large parts of the Kingdom to slow decline and decay, to dereliction and to persistent unemployment, in pursuit of old-fangled 19th century doctrines of laissez-faire. We shall act. We shall act to bring new life to these areas suffering from high unemployment or depopulation. The unemployment figure for Scotland then was 77,400. Today, on the same calculations, it is 123,000—an increase of 60 per cent. The unemployment figure in Dundee at that time was 2,633. Today it is 5,461. The proof of our motion lies in the promises that were made and the performance.

I am staggered that the Government should think fit to table an amendment which virtually asks us to forget the past and just look at today.

Mr. Ian MacArthur (Perth and East Perthshire)

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Ross

This is a short debate. The hon. Gentleman is good at interrupting. I hope that he will catch Mr. Speaker's eye and that he will appreciate why I am not giving way.

Mr. MacArthur

I wish only to make a brief remark.

Mr. Ross

The hon. Gentleman has already wasted two minutes. Those clear promises were made. To suggest that we should forget what has happened since June 1970 and just look at today is asking too much. That promise was screamed from the housetops by Tory candidates during the election campaign. They promised a complete change. I have here a leaflet that came through my door. I am sorry that the Under-Secretary of State for Development, Scottish Office, who was the hon. Gentleman responsible for it, is not here. George Younger—your Conservative candidate. Under yet another Labour Government there is little doubt it would be the same again; still higher taxes, higher cost of living and another wage freeze. Conservative Government will be quite different. It will bring back prosperity. It appears from the present unemployment figures that prosperity is slow in coming. The leaflet goes on: We are asking the electorate to approve a programme that has been very carefully worked out. For four months after the election there was a standstill. Then on 27th October the Chancellor of the Exchequer came to the House and delivered himself of a great speech. He ended by announcing sixpence off income tax, and all the Tories stood and waved their Order Papers. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said that he would slash Government expenditure, he would slash the aid given to industry—investment grants for plant and machinery, and equipment for industry. Ships and agriculture were affected, and so was everything else. The death sentence was pronounced upon the regional employment premium. It was to go in 1974. There was to be a slash in the investment programmes of the nationalised industries. Within the non-development areas there was to be a loosening in the grant of industrial development certificates. Almost everything that was said in that speech resulted in a lack of confidence and created unemployment.

These were the policies to which the Home Secretary referred when he said: If we could get back to Tory policies, the unemployment position would be a great deal better."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th May 1970; Vol. 801, c. 421.] Then the Government did all the usual things. Unemployment rose. The Government had decided what had to be done and, according to the Under-Secretary of State for Development, it had all been carefully worked out.

The Prime Minister told the annual Tory Party Conference: This strategy I have outlined … will lead to an expanding economy which will enable the standard of living of all our people to rise. Witness the rise in the unemployment figures. Just because for two or three months there has been a seasonal trend of improvement, there is no justification for elation.

Mr. MacArthur rose—

Mr. Ross

I am sorry, I have already given the hon. Gentleman his answer.

Mr. MacArthur

I shall be brief—

Mr. Ross

I will not give way. I want to give time for my hon. Friends and hon. Gentlemen opposite to make their speeches.

We have been this way before. I have here the unemployment figures for every month since 1946 and marked in red are the unemployment figures for the months which were affected by General Elections. In January 1959 there were 116,510 unemployed. Then came the boom of Government expenditure, and the figure came down. It started to rise again after the election. The same happened in 1963. There was a boom that nearly burst this country.

From the accounts of the Select Committee on Expenditure for the past year and this year, we can see the same thing coming again. The Under-Secretary of State for Home Affairs and Agriculture, Scottish Office, has told us that Government expenditure is far too high. From the time when the Government changed course, when they found how disastrous were these policies, by their dogma they drove Scotland to the point of decline and disaster in 1971 and 1972.

There are standing in the wings the same villains of the piece as previously caught up with Scotland. Before we had a taste of the boom, it had ended, and we were back in deflation and balance of payments difficulties. That is why we refuse to turn our eyes from the past.

It is interesting to notice that after the introduction of this revival of Selsdon Toryism, when the era of the lame ducks was brought in, within months there was trouble in Scotland with Upper Clyde Shipbuilders, and then there was Rolls-Royce and all the rest. The lame duck has now shuffled off to Brussels and I am glad to say that his policies have been forgotten.

Mr. MacArthur

No.

Mr. Ross

The hon. Gentleman should read the article in the Glasgow Herald of 23rd February 1973, in which one of his colleagues talks about Selsdon Man having been buried. The article is headed: Why no one mourns the death of Selsdon Man". It is written by the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Critchley). He recognises that a change has taken place and that the Government belatedly recognise that they were on a policy which was heading for disaster. But unemployment is still with us in Scotland. It is not good enough to say, "Look how it has come down in the past month".

Mr. MacArthur

In the past year.

Mr. Ross

The Glasgow Herald of 23rd February 1973 had something to say about this: That still leaves Scotland with an unemployment rate about one-and-three-quarter times the national average. If the rest of Britain had the same unemployment rate as has Scotland there would be 1¼ million unemployed. Yet we are asked to approve the amendment. I hope that the Under-Secretary of State for Development, Scottish Office, appreciates that that is why we are so angry. We are concerned about this rate of unemployment. The Act from which the Minister's powers stem became law on 9th August 1972 and this Government took office on 18th June 1970. Scotland is paying dearly for those lost years.

The Minister for Industrial Development (Mr. Christopher Chataway)

Surely the right hon. Gentleman recog- nises that during the latter part of the time he was Secretary of State for Scotland unemployment rose steadily in Scotland. He knows that the Labour Government left a rapidly rising trend of unemployment. Does he seriously ask the House to believe that the events in the 18 months after the election had nothing to do with the Labour Government's policies?

Mr. Ross

The right hon. Gentleman must appreciate that the Tory Party was as aware of unemployment figures and trends as anyone else. I have quoted the figures. The right hon. Gentleman talked of high unemployment. I reckon that 77,000 unemployed is high. The Prime Minister thought that it was heart rending. What does he think now after 32 months of this Government? Does he think that 120,000 unemployed is a matter of which to be proud? Did not the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he introduced his Budget, say that it would produce growth? Did he not also say that it would reduce unemployment? He kept saying it.

On 29th April, 1971, the present Home Secretary said: We shall also continue our regional policies. They are working. They will work."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th April, 1971; Vol. 816. c. 840.] A year later the Chancellor threw them overboard. He kept denying that there was a serious unemployment situation until, in his Budget of 1972, he said that the Government were required to change course. In that year we got the Industry Act on 9th August. But we lost all those months.

We did not get new investment in Scotland. The sad thing is that we had our opportunities and chances. We have 120,000 unemployed and we are pretty well on into a great oil boom. New firms are coming in, setting up, and creating new jobs. About 3,000 new jobs have already been created. We should have been in a better position than ever if our regional policies had been right. But the Government scrapped our regional policies. They laughed at them. They did not wait for reports from the House that they had commissioned regarding investment grants. How can the Government ask us to treat them seriously if they also ask us to forget their past and part in the matter?

It does not end there. Things will not be rosy from now on. We know that in the modernisation process of the steel industry we shall lose between 6,500 and 7,500 jobs or job opportunities. There is more certainty about losing jobs than about new ones coming in. The phasing will not be such that Scotland will not notice it. This is in parts of Scotland—Ayrshire and Lanarkshire—which are being hardest hit at the present time, although the figures are serious for the whole of Scotland. The triangle, Greenock-Dundee-Edinburgh, the great industrial heart of Scotland, is where the figures are highest.

Even the figure for Aberdeen at 2.9 per cent. is higher than in September 1969 when the Prime Minister made his speech. It was only 2.6 per cent. then. I have already quoted the figures for Dundee. The figure for Edinburgh is 4.5 per cent. At that time it was 3.3 per cent. The figure for the whole of the Glasgow area, which is much wider than Glasgow as it takes in considerable parts of North and East Glasgow, is 7.5 per cent. It was then 4.4 per cent.

There were considerable changes as a result of, not in spite of, the Government's policies. When it is suggested that we should not talk this way, I remind the House that Hamish Grant, the Secretary of the Scottish CBI, commenting on the figures for last month, said that he welcomed them, but pointed out, We must not read too much into one month's figures. He has been on the job before. He has seen the false dawns that have been put before us in the past about this matter.

The shop stewards at Babcock and Wilcox are worried about the possibility of losing more jobs.

Mr. MacArthur rose—

Mr. Ross

There are people under notice at present.

Mr. MacArthur

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Ross

No.

Mr. MacArthur

Not even briefly?

Mr. Ross

Not even briefly, because I know the hon. Gentleman from the past.

Because of their concern at the possibility of 4,000 jobs eventually being lost in Renfrew, the shop stewards have asked to see the Secretary of State for Employment. He has been invited to visit the plant next month. The same is true elsewhere. There is no abounding confidence in the West and the heart of Scotland about the future.

I do not know whether the hon. Gentlemen opposite realise that Mr. William Jack, the Chairman of the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, made an interesting speech on 29th January this year, in which he said: unemployment is at an intolerable level for those of us who are in work and at a disastrous level for those who are not. He rightly pointed out: we must distinguish between employment and loss of employment opportunity. In the most prosperous regions, workers have become unemployed but when the up-swing in the economy establishes itself, they can be reabsorbed into industry. But in the development areas, generally, and certainly in Scotland, not only have men been laid off, but in many cases their jobs have disappeared. There have been over 100,000 redundancies—those are jobs which have disappeared or they would not be classed as redundancies—since this Government came to power.

Mr. Jack voiced concern about the steel industry—I will not go into that fully today—and about the lack of confidence in the Government's attitude to regional policies. He said: We welcomed the new regional development incentives, although it must be said that they seem slow to take effect. That will no doubt be the Government's argument, that they are taking effect, though slowly. I fear they will be even slower and that, before they achieve their effect, something will happen to stop them.

Mr. Jack continued: We were not so pleased with the raising of the exemption limit for industrial development certificates. There is no doubt that this negative control is at least as important as grants and loans and its slackening at this time will certainly not help the regions. All the indications are that we shall have to keep a close watch on the whole business of regional policy. We who live in the development areas tend to assume that regional development aids will always be with us. … We know that regional policy is under attack in various quarters and that DTI Ministers are under pressure to reduce development aid. In other words, to get back to 27th October 1970 policies. We shall almost certainly find, too, that attitudes in the Community to this matter are very different from our own. Altogether, considerable vigilance in this field will be needed. The Secretary of State delivered a dazzling speech that won him many friends. It slaughtered them in Kirkcaldy and they were dumbfounded in Dunfermline. But the next day he came to this House and told us that he knew of persons or institutions in Scotland who were against the continuation of REP. When we asked him to name the persons or bodies, he said that he could not do that without notice. He has had quite a long time to think about it. I hope that he will tell us today who all these interesting people are.

The next day in The Times there was a plea for the retention of the regional premium. Prospects of between 20,000 and 50,000 jobs being lost in development areas and the repercussions on industrial confidence as a result of the planned abolition of REP have prompted the Confederation of British industry to press for the continuation of the labour subsidy for a further five years. As if that were not enough, an article on another page of The Times of the same day said that executives of Guest, Keen & Nettlefold gave evidence to the House of Commons Sub-Committee studying the subject of regional aid and one of the things that they were insisting on as worth while was the regional employment premium. I did not notice anybody taking a stand on behalf of the Secretary of State who is opposed to it.

This study by the CBI and the Department of Applied Economics was related to what was happening in Northern Ireland and what would happen there if REP were removed. The conclusion was that it would mean a loss of 2,000 jobs. In United Kingdom terms that would be between 20,000 and 50,000. The amount paid in REP in a year is just over £100 million, of which Scotland gets £40 million, or two-thirds.

Mr. Edward Taylor (Glasgow, Cathcart)

Two-fifths.

Mr. Ross

I am glad that somebody is listening to the figures. One can take it that if this important incentive were removed the number of jobs lost in Scotland would be between 7,000 and 12,000.

Perhaps I may cite Sir Eric Yarrow, who was concerned about the effect of this decision on shipbuilding. He did not merely want REP to be continued. He wanted it to be increased. In addition, there was the evidence given by the Chrysler executives to the same Sub-Committee, and there is also the view of the STUC. When those views are added together they make a powerful case for asking the Government to think again about their decision to end REP or to phase it out.

From a Scottish point of view the Government have a lot to answer for because of their failure to give the reassurance that is needed and to honour the pledges that they have made. It is still the worst hit areas in Scotland that are being hit hardest. In North Lanarkshire, the unemployment figure is 7.3 per cent.; in Greenock and Port Glasgow, 7.3 per cent.; in Paisley, Renfrew and Johnstone, 4.8 per cent., and in Dumbarton and Alexandria, 8.1 per cent. Those are the figures in Scotland in the midst of what should be a further surge forward. Scotland has again been bypassed industrially, as it has been in the past.

I sincerely hope that the Government will be able today to announce some kind of help for Scotland. I know that Dundee is waiting for help for its shipyards where 96 boilermakers are under notice and where ship orders are urgently needed The orders could come from the Post Office for cable ships, and thus save not only the jobs there but many others.

There is one other factor that must be borne in mind. In 1966, when we were the Government, I suggested that emigration from Scotland was rising at an alarming rate, and I set a target of reducing that figure by half within five years. When we took office the figure was about 45,000 a year. Within a year it had risen to about 47,000, but I am glad to say that during the last year when I was Secretary of State it had dropped to just over 20,000.

Unfortunately, the figure is rising again. The 1970–71 figure showed an increase of 1,600 over the previous year, and in 1971–72 it rose to 27,600, an increase of 7,500 within a couple of years. If we are to sustain a revival in Scottish industry we cannot afford to lose people, and it is the youngest and the most able who go. In present world circumstances, it is the craftsman and the skilled man who leave the country. This is a dangerous trend and one to which I hope the Government will show they are paying attention.

The amendment asks us to ignore the past disastrous 32 months. It asks people to forget their hardships, their worries and the privations of their families. The House should realise that when a man is unemployed—and far too many have been unemployed for more than a year—it destroys his spirit and disrupts family life.

Young people, too, are finding themselves in difficulties. The number of school leavers who have yet to find a job is more than 1,600. If one includes those under 24 who have been unemployed for more than six months, the figure comes to about 10,000. That kind of situation leads to all sorts of social problems, and it is no good asking people to forget the past. It is no good the Government saying that they have changed their policies and changed their mind.

People in Scotland remember the many promises made to them by the Tory Party over the years. The Prime Minister's message to the Conservative candidate at Dundee is that the Government's policies are fair, practical and necessary. How can a policy be fair if it leads to the kind of situation that I have tried to describe? If the unemployment figure is 120,000, and if this kind of situation has existed for more than two years, one can take it that nearly 500,000 families in Scotland have been affected. The matter is serious indeed.

The answer to whether the Government's policies are fair has been given this week in the London Press as well as in the Glasgow newspapers. We are facing the most serious week of industrial unrest since the General Strike. That is a considerable achievement for a Government who were going to handle the unions in a way that would create harmony.

Some things can be done only on a basin of fairness. Only if there is fairness can there be co-operation. When the Government knock people down and kick them in the teeth and then expect them to react in a spirit of true co-operation, they are asking far too much. The answer to whether the Government's policies are fair has also been given by the Secretary of State's own civil servants. I gather that some staff from the Scottish Office will be on strike tomorrow. I hope that the cameras will be there to record what happens. Gas workers, water board manual workers, railway men and hospital ancillary workers are not showing any signs of accepting the Government's policies as being fair. A practical policy which creates unemployment on an intolerable—indeed, disastrous—scale in Scotland is not something that we readily accept.

The historical imbalance of Scottish industry and the proper use of our native skills require not just a change in direction but a sustained change. In 1970 the change was in the wrong direction, and it has led to the highest unemployment that we have ever had. The fact that the Government have again changed direction is no guarantee that they will continue this way. Confidence has been eroded. There is no overnight solution, and no magic panacea, whether it be the Common Market or oil. The discovery of oil can help, but it depends on how we control and exploit it.

To this side of the House the lesson of the last miserable Tory months is clear. We require massive investment in new industry. We require a restoration of confidence and the creation of a sense of fairness among the people of Scotland in order to achieve the co-operation that is necessary to improve the Scottish situation. Above all, we need Government participation and action. Never was public control and ownership more relevant than it is today, and more and more people are coming to realise that.

Mr. MacArthur

Oh, no.

Mr. Ross

Their policies were clear. Their performance is equally clear, and it justifies the motion.

4.20 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Gordon Campbell)

I beg to move to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof: deeply concerned with the problem of unemployment in Scotland welcomes the fall of 27,000 in the seasonally adjusted number of unemployed in Scotland since February 1972 and commends Her Majesty's Government for the success which their policies are achieving. The Opposition seem to have an uncanny knack of mistiming the choice of subjects for their Supply Days. On Wednesday of last week they chose this subject and, presumably, composed the motion. On the following day the February unemployment figures were published, showing a dramatic improvement in the unemployment figures—

Mr. William Hamilton (Fife, West)

From what?

Mr. Campbell

—following a continuously improving trend for the figures for Scotland since last March. This is where the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) was wrong. He again completely mistimed his remarks because, seasonally adjusted, the trend has been an improving one for almost a year, and he said that it was just for two or three months. Those were his words. That shows how out of touch he is with the situation.

It was the same with the housing debate the other day. The Opposition tabled what was supposed to be a motion of censure. It proved to be a strange new parliamentary device—a damp squib that boomeranged. It was prompted by some figures which had just come out on that occasion—the number of houses completed in 1972. But what the Opposition had overlooked until the debate was that the average time between approval for a house in the public sector in Scotland and completion at that period was 24 months. Therefore, the decrease in completions in 1972 simply reflected the declining figures for approvals at the time of the Labour Government's period of office. The motion in that case recoiled upon them.

The same propensity for being irrelevant and out of date applies to today's motion on unemployment. Last Thursday's figures showed an improvement of nearly 10,000 in the number of wholly unemployed in Scotland, and this at a time during the winter when one does not normally expect an improvement to occur. Seasonally adjusted, the number of unemployed has fallen by no fewer than 27,000 in the past year.

We welcome the opportunity to have a debate on this important subject despite the backward-looking and meaningless motion upon which it is based. When we came into office in 1970 the unemployment figures in Scotland were shooting upwards alarmingly. That was in mid-summer when one would not expect them to be rising. The figure was 90,000 as we took over, and the right hon. Gentleman was talking about 100,000 being a kind of sound barrier in this matter. This was in mid-summer. It was very clear why the Labour Government had opted for an early election in 1970. We then had to cope with the continuing increase in unemployment after that—an increase which we deplored, with social effects which we have been most concerned to remedy.

There were particular areas of high unemployment in Scotland, most of them in West Central Scotland, which we then upgraded into a very large special development area. We were also particularly concerned about school leavers and shortage of work for young people.

General economic measures by the Government were needed to stimulate the economy and to provide the expansion and alternative jobs to match and to overtake the redundancies. This is being done and the successful results have been seen in recent months. At the outset, however, we produced a massive programme of public works, with the cooperation of Scottish local authorities. This was a task on which we had to set out immediately. It amounted in value to over £60 million in Scotland and provided valuable employment during an immediate and difficult period.

During 1971 and 1972 the Government have taken up every possibility of carrying out or advancing necessary work which could provide welcome jobs. There have been environmental improvement schemes, higher grants for improving housing, and "operation face-lift" for the Glasgow area and elsewhere. All these schemes have been taken up in a way which has been much welcomed by the Government. We have been getting useful work done while at the same time helping to relieve the unemployment situation to the greatest extent possible.

All the time the Government have been giving the highest priority to the health of the economy and to beating inflation. The combination of Budget measures and of new incentives for regional development has produced the conditions for the growth in the economy in recent months. The Government's policies are having effect and achieving the expansion and increased employment which we see.

But instead of welcoming this good news and acknowledging that the measures are working, the Opposition, as usual, seem to be brooding gloomily on the past and, so far as one can see, on the future, too. Do they want to see further improvement in the unemployment figures? Do they want to see healthy new industrial development in Scotland? Or would this deprive them of their opportunities to voice pessimism and doubt about investment in Scotland's future?

The combination of measures for regional development announced last March precisely suited the requirements of Scotland. This was made clear by bodies such as the Scottish Council and the Scottish Trades Union Congress, which had advocated some of these measures. In particular, the system of free depreciation for both manufacturing and service industries was extended widely, thus assisting—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan) interrupts, and I can hear what he is saying. This extension to the whole of the United Kingdom was one of the points advocated not only by the Scottish Council but by the STUC. So if the hon. Gentleman does not consider that helpful to Scotland, he does not understand the point to which I was coming, that this was a measure which would assist the capital goods sector and, therefore, very much a part of industry which predominates in Scotland.

Mr. Robert Maclennan (Caithness and Sutherland)

If the improvements introduced by the right hon. Gentleman last March were so tailor-made for Scotland's needs, why did Scotland have to wait nearly two years for them to be introduced?

Mr. Campbell

I have spoken of the previous measures, budgetary measures, which, first, were aimed at creating a stimulus to get the economy moving, and then we spread the measures already in existence, such as the special development areas. This was a weapon immediately at hand. It was the one thing that we could do without legislation. But we then had to think of a combination which had to be put into a Bill which had to be passed by the House—the Industry Act. It took the previous Government two years to bring in their system of investment grants, because that also had to go through the House.

I shall say it again for the benefit of the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan), who one might have thought had been living in Siberia or at the North Pole during this period. For the first two years we had to use what was available without putting legislation through the House, plus the budgetary system. The Budgets were able to bring in, from a fiscal and financial point of view, various improvements. We have thus brought together a combination of measures which required legislation. I am pointing out that these met particular requests of important bodies in Scotland and, as a combination, they were particularly suited to Scotland's needs at the moment they were introduced.

Another point, if I may remind the hon. Gentleman, who seems to have been living at the North Pole during that period, is that the discrimination against firms expanding on the spot compared with incoming firms, which was a source of considerable grievance in Scotland, was eliminated. This was discrimination arising from the system of special development areas which had been introduced by the Labour Government. We had to use them while they were available until we could make the changes by legislation.

Above all, a new Scottish industrial development office was set up quickly in Scotland. Not only does much of the important work on loans and other assistance now take place in Scotland—north of the border instead of in London—but the new office also has powers to take initiatives to assist new development.

The downward trend in unemployment has been accompanied by a welcome rising trend in the number of vacancies available in Scotland. The number of vacancies this month of 16,200 is more than double the figure notified a year ago.

The result of the latest CBI industrial trend survey, published earlier this month, indicates for Scotland a strong increase in output and new orders in recent months. It also shows a fall, since the last survey, in the proportion of firms operating below capacity. This encouraging survey has been supported this weekend by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research.

All concerned agree, however, that the fundamental condition for industrial success is that the battle against inflation should be won. This is why the Government are giving the highest priority to the counter-inflation programme. Once the uncertainties caused by inflation disappear, there can be a flood of renewed confidence in investment.

The National Institute's annual review of the economic situation, published three days ago, is based on estimates completely independent of Government and made from its own detailed research. It is significant and encouraging that it objectively foresees continued growth in the economy and, commenting on the effect of last year's Budget, it says: In so far as the major aim of the budget was to bring about a sizeable reduction in unemployment it must be counted a significant success. Over the past 12 months unemployment in Scotland has dropped by 20 per cent. Although the improvement has been experienced throughout Scotland, hon. Members opposite should be particularly gratified to note that Dundee's rate has improved even faster—by 27 per cent. For the right hon. Gentleman's information, Kilmarnock also has shown a better than average improvement at 24 per cent.

The right hon. Gentleman drew attention particularly to Dundee and to the need for orders for building ships there. I remind him that only recently the Scottish Transport Group gave an order for building a ferry to Robb Caledon—a Dundee firm which has also put in a bid for Government orders. The firm has yards at Leith and at Dundee. It must decide how best to plan its business. It has one order and has tendered for further Government orders.

The Government have been particularly concerned about jobs for young people in Scotland. We have encouraged indus- trial training boards to set up special award schemes to provide training facilities for young people unable to obtain apprenticeships, and we have provided financial assistance for these schemes. The Government's vocational training scheme has also been extended to include young people in limited skill courses.

Third, we have just announced our continuing support for the scheme promoted by the National Association of Youth Clubs, known as the Community Industry Scheme and grant aided by the Government. There are two such projects in Scotland—at Glasgow and Dundee. I wish them well.

I come now to Europe. At the European Summit Conference in October the Heads of Government of the Member States of the enlarged Community agreed to give regional policy a high priority in the new Community. It was agreed that a regional development fund should be set up by the end of 1973 and that it would be financed from the Community's resources. The fund would be used to correct the main regional imbalances in the Community, including those arising from industrial change and structural under-employment, as well as from agricultural difficulties. This represented a considerable change in emphasis from the previous attitude of the Six, whose regional problems had been mainly agricultural.

Other Community schemes of assistance include the European Social Fund and schemes under the auspices of the European Coal and Steel Community. Both of these schemes provide assistance for the re-training and re-settlement of workers, the latter applying to re-training coal and steel workers.

What are the attitudes and actions of the Labour Party on this? Entirely negative as far as we can see so far. It decided to boycott the European Parliament and it is taking no part in discussions at Strasbourg or Brussels. I can only describe this as a very unhelpful attitude for Scotland, paradoxically at a time when a former Scottish Member of the House, Mr. George Thomson, is the Commissioner concerned with regional development in the Community.

Scotland's economy is increasingly being affected by North Sea oil. Developments already announced are to provide at least 8,000 new jobs, with about another 3,000 at the peak construction period of the BP pipeline. About a dozen oil rigs were being serviced from Aberdeen this summer and the number operating off the Scottish coast will rapidly increase.

One of the most important developments has been the establishment of yards for the construction of production platforms. Three of these are now being developed in Scotland—at Nigg Bay, Ardersier and Methil. At the Nigg Bay yard, where already some 500 men are employed, work is proceeding on the largest production platform in the world. Next year it will be fixed in position in the Forties field. Proposals have been made for a further six platform production yards of various kinds. This is an indication of the future possibilities.

Three Scottish steel mills will share in the order for the 140-mile BP land pipeline which has been placed with the British Steel Corporation. Orders for coating the pipes for the under-sea and land pipeline contracts have been placed with firms at Invergordon and Leith respectively.

It is only within the last two years that decisions were taken that the oil found in the formidable and difficult conditions below the seabed could be commercially extracted. It will be two years before the first of it is landed. But things have been happening very fast on the oil scene in Scotland and the Government have been attracting and steering suitable developments to parts of Scotland. Examples of what we are doing are, first, to provide early information and advice to firms connected with the industry. We have enabled the planning procedures to be carried out swiftly and we have taken special action, wherever necessary—for example, at Peterhead.

At Peterhead, the Government were the harbour authority as a result of a local Act of the 1880s but found that they were debarred from allowing any development at all under the same Act because the bay was for use only as a refuge from storms. We immediately presented a Bill to Parliament and managed to get the legislation altered. Since then, everything at Peterhead has gone, at full speed to provide serving facilities for oil rigs.

That work would no doubt have gone elsewhere if it had not been possible for that bay at Peterhead to be made available. That was a one-off task because it was unlike anything else in Scotland, but it involved the Government and we went straight in and managed to ensure that the bay became available for this important new industry in a very short time—a matter of months.

Six well-known Scottish firms are amongst those that won important contracts for the supply of equipment to the new oil industry. The equipment includes pumps, generators, deck modules, cranes and flotation collars.

There is welcome activity at suitable sites along the East Coast of Scotland from Shetland to the Forth. Only last week another project was announced for Dundee, which is the marine base for BP and where new quays are being constructed for servicing vessels for the oil industry. This has all been happening in the space of about 1½ years.

As the exploration spreads, we can expect more oil to be found around the north and to the west of Scotland. The capital investment required and the specially difficult drilling conditions govern the speed at which the stages of extending exploration can be carried out. This is why the Government have made no attempt to estimate the quantity of oil which may be landed in the years beyond 1980. It is at present possible to forecast only for seven years ahead, because a great deal could be found in blocks as yet unexplored. I hope that it will be.

Although this is a new industry for Scotland, the oil discoveries may well be the most important economic event for Scotland of this century.

While we are busy winning jobs for Scotland which might have gone elsewhere, we are at the same time accelerating the programmes for housing, roads and services required for this industry and for the growing communities in the North and North East. The drift of people southwards from the North of Scotland has been reversed, probably for the first time in two centuries. The situation is reflected in the fact that the construction industry in the North of Scotland is fully engaged and can scarcely take on more work without reinforcement in both men and machines. The kind of work and jobs which the oil industry produces is what we need in Scotland—work for men, in the first place, for there has been a shortage of work for men where work for women has been available—work such as welding, steel fabrication and operating boats and shipping services.

We, therefore, expect some movement within Scotland to fill the new jobs becoming available, but the move will be generally northwards. Last year's new Government scheme of generous grants to help in moving house to new jobs or to retraining gives appropriate assistance available for this situation.

The Government have recognised that the most valuable way in which the new industry can be helped now is through special additional expenditure on roads, housing, harbours and other infrastructure services. This is being done at least two years before the first oil can be landed and any royalties paid. The Government are paying out now in anticipation of receipts in years to come. For example, the SSHA has a special programme of house building to meet the new need in the North of Scotland, and tens of millions of pounds are being spent on the roads to the North and to the North East.

Besides helping the development of this new industry, the acceleration of programmes and extra expenditure is for the benefit of Scotland as a whole, since it is improving and constructing valuable assets for the community.

What is the Labour Opposition's policy towards the new industry? We had their policy discussion document last summer, and the proposal there was for nationalisation. Apparently, this has now been confirmed. I can only describe it as a barren, stultifying, out-dated and irrelevant formula in a field in which innovation and enterprise are especially at a premium.

Should the Opposition ever be in a position to carry out their policy of public ownership, what may we expect? I remember when the British Steel Corporation was being set up, brought into existence under a nationalising Bill of the last Labour Government. But now, only a short time later, hon. Members opposite appear to distrust and dislike that corporation. We could well see a similar policy for oil, a nationalised corporation, and then, within five or six years, hon. Members opposite attacking it for decisions on investment for modernisation. For those now working on the oil rigs or building the platforms, the Labour Party's policy is simply a threat to the future of their jobs, but, fortunately, a remote threat.

The tourist trade also is important for Scotland. Last Thursday, the Government announced that, subject to parliamentary approval, it is proposed that the grants available for tourist projects in development areas will be about doubled in 1973–74. This is good news for Scotland, especially as the scheme applies only to development areas.

Scottish industry now has greater opportunities than ever before to expand and to develop for the future. There is a growing United Kingdom market. Entry into the EEC will effectively increase the domestic market to about 250 million people, and there are all the opportunities associated with North Sea oil. Over the past year, the Government have taken a whole series of measures to boost industrial development and investment and to encourage employment and the growth and regeneration of industry in Scotland. It is clear from the figures I have given that these measures are succeeding.

There are energetic and enterprising people in all parts of Scottish industry. Scotland is now getting the needed stimulus and can be confident in the success of well planned investment. Modernisation and re-equipment are necessary, and this may well entail changes in jobs and some redundancies, but these will be accompanied by expansion providing more jobs.

The motion is a feeble attempt to discredit the Government. It will fail because our measures have clearly had the effect of reversing the increasing unemployment and deteriorating economic situation which we inherited. Provided that we can control inflation, the prospects for Scotland are good.

We are accustomed to attempts by the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) to spread gloom and despondency about Scotland's situation. We heard him at it again today.

Mr. MacArthur

He always does it.

Mr. Campbell

Yes, we are not surprised. But his attempts are misplaced, and they will be rejected and ignored.

4.47 p.m.

Mr. James Hamilton (Bothwell)

After listening to the Cassius Clay speech of the Secretary of State, one could well imagine that the 120,781 unemployed in Scotland today might wonder why we should have this debate.

Mr. MacArthur

Cassius Clay wins.

Mr. Hamilton

But we are used to that sort of thing from the Secretary of State, and we all know the record of the Conservative Party when in Government during the post-war years. In 1963, there were 136,316 unemployed, the highest total in the post-war period up to then, and in 1972, again when the Tories were in Government, we had more than 152,000. Now, in 1973, at a time of so-called expansion, as the right hon. Gentleman describes it, and a time of galloping inflation, we still have mass unemployment.

As the Minister for Industrial Development knows, there are redundancies it, Scotland which have not yet been recorded. Only last week, I put a Question to him about a factory in my constituency where 600 people became redundant. Of those 600, in spite of all the jobs about which the Secretary of State tells us, only 40 have so far found fresh employment.

Over the years—this applies to my own Government, too—there has been job loss in Scotland. When the Tories were in Opposition, they used to make great play of this. We are entitled to ask them now what they propose to do about the job losses which have occurred and those which are coming. We read in the Press that the noble Lord the Minister of State, with his special committee, will be settling down to discuss the redundancies coming in the steel industry. Unless there are jobs to match the redundancies coming in that industry, there will be serious problems, particularly in North Lanarkshire, the heart of the steel industry, which was not mentioned by the Secretary of State, where we still have 7.3 per cent. of the insured population unemployed.

I thought that when the Secretary of State for Scotland was talking about the great oil boom and the expansion which is taking place, he was going to tell us that we were to get Hunterston. That is something to which he did not refer. He referred to the pipe-laying industry. In my constituency is the British Steel Corporation's Clydesdale works. Major expansion is taking place there and we are pleased about that, but in spite of all the orders that are coming forward—and he can have my assurance about this because I visited the works—not more than 20 new jobs will be created in the works. So we cannot under any circumstances talk about expansion in view of the very few jobs created.

The right hon. Gentleman also mentioned the programmes which are being carried out by local authorities, school building and other programmes, which must be completed by June this year. Once these programmes are completed many of our craftsman in the construction industry will be unemployed unless local authorities are to introduce housebuilding programmes which will give these craftsmen the necessary jobs. But because of the Government's policy under the Housing (Financial Provisions) Scotland Act local authorities do not want to build houses which are so urgently required. When we talk about expansion we have to bear in mind some of the factories which have been built in development areas. I visited a factory on a private industrial estate in my constituency which from outside appearances seemed to offer considerable employment, but when I spoke to the people working there I discovered that the job total two months ago was seven and it was expected to reach the magnificent total of 10 by the time they were in full production. Therefore this will not in any circumstances solve the unemployment problem in Scotland.

I am deeply concerned about people who are 45 and over. As they become redundant they are retrained, but retrained for what? I am very much in favour of retraining but it is fallacious to retrain men if there are no new jobs to which they can apply their new skills. The two must go together. My right hon. Friend referred to young people. He mentioned a figure but the latest figure I have from the Minister himself is that 2,137 school leavers who left at the last school-leaving date have not found their first job.

In Lanarkshire I have discovered that one of the weaknesses is that many of the big establishments are no longer accepting apprentices. One of the major factories in Lanarkshire—not in my constituency—has not taken on apprentices for three years. In my area another large firm did not employ one apprentice last year and consequently many of our young people, because they are disillusioned, feel they have been let down by society and are now moving south, particularly to London.

There are two organisations which look after our young people when they come to London. We have to remember that in Scotland there are only 10 jobs for every 100 youths under the age of 18. We must also bear in mind that in London and the South East there are 201 jobs for every 100 young people leaving school. That, of course, makes it difficult for our young people, and they are coming to London. Along with my hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract (Mr. Harper) I visited one of the establishments in Soho called "The New Horizon" run by social workers, one full time and many others working in a voluntary capacity. When I spoke to some of the young people there I discovered that the majority of them came from Scotland. Most of them were there because they could not find a job at home.

I do not want to be sensational, but some of these young people are moving around London without accommodation, without knowledge of the situation and with no thought of what they are to do. They quite easily become prey for the prostitutes, drug addicts and drug peddlers. According to the organisation that has happened to some of our young people. Consequently, each and every one of us whether in Government or Opposition, has a moral obligation to try to do something for our young people, and the best possible thing we can do, of course, is to ensure that we get satisfactory employment for them.

I have spoken about apprenticeships. The figures about the young people do not present the true facts. Many of these young people are going to pre-vocational schools. They can attend for five days, but they receive no remuneration. In many instances that has encouraged them not to take full advantage of the scheme. They go for three days, signing on for social security for two days where they are over the age of 16, and drawing social security benefit. It costs the country £1,560 a year to keep a boy in borstal. Surely we are entitled to devise some way in which we can best help these young people financially.

The construction industry, with which I am very familiar, is not in any circumstances booming in the way that the Secretary of State claimed. There is a boom in the North of Scotland but there has not been a boom for construction workers, particularly since June, in the central belt.

Mr. Gordon Campbell

I was referring to the North of Scotland. I did not say that the construction industry was booming in Scotland as a whole. The hon. member must have misunderstood me.

Mr. Hamilton

I did not misunderstand the Secretary of State. I said that he mentioned the oil boom in the North of Scotland. But that will in no circumstances alleviate unemployment in the western region, which we discussed in Committee upstairs, and which is half of industrial Scotland. The Secretary of State said that the Government had introduced measures to make it easy for people to move from one area to another, but if the people who move cannot get a local authority house, the astronomical prices being asked for private houses place them in an impossible position.

My right hon. Friend referred to the regional employment premium. I have discovered in talking to industrialists that they are in a great state of uncertainty. They have made it perfectly clear that because of the uncertainty of Government policy since the Conservatives took office in 1970, because the Government have reversed their policy on many occasions, they are hoping that the Government will take note of the representations made to them and of the plea that has now been made by the CBI, and that they will announce that they are to continue with the REP. The premium could go a long way to restoring confidence in the industrialists and getting them moving in the right direction.

Many of my hon. Friends want to take part in the debate, so I shall be brief. I ask the Government not to forget, when they present unemployment figures to us, that the debate is not about the United Kingdom as a whole but about Scotland. I hope that the Minister who replies will refer to my point about the authority given by the Government to local authorities and public bodies to carry out their programmes, which will terminate in June. That means, without a shadow of doubt, that the unemployment figures could easily be back by the end of the year to the 152,000 that we had in 1972.

5.1 p.m.

Sir Fitzroy Maclean (Bute and North Ayrshire)

I listened with interest to what the hon. Member for Bothwell (Mr. James Hamilton) said, particularly about the employment of young people. I agree that it is vital, but I cannot help feeling that perhaps the hon. Gentleman is a little pessimistic. Two of the latest sets of figures seem to me to be quite encouraging. The number of unemployed school leavers has fallen by 500 to 1,637. That figure is admittedly too high, but it is falling, which shows that school leavers are gradually being absorbed into employment. Another encouraging point is that since the university term has started again there are no adult students seeking employment, compared with 2,309 last month.

Mr. Ross

The universities were on holiday then.

Sir F. Maclean

I was going to start by congratulating the Opposition on their timing, in choosing today for this particular debate. Until I listened to the speech of the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross), I hoped that this showed an entirely new spirit of fair play and generosity on his part. For what other motive could he have had in choosing a time when there is such a marked improvement in both the United Kingdom and Scottish employment figures? What is more, there is every indication that the improvement is not just seasonal, as the right hon. Gentleman suggested, but a continuing trend, that things are getting better and will get better still. The Glasgow Herald has even foreshadowed that, if things go on like this, within 12 months there will be a labour shortage.

Better still, there are plenty of indications that in addition to this improvement in the employment figures there is an improvement in investment and production, and, because of that, more vacancies. The right hon. Gentleman did not mention any of those things. They are all a direct consequence of Government policy.

As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, only two things could get in the way of returning prosperity and expansion. One is continuing inflation and the other is continuing strikes and labour disputes. In such a situation, I cannot believe that a responsible Opposition could consciously do anything to encourage either. But that must be something between them and their consciences.

We must remember that when potential foreign investors read that 4,000 Ford workers at Hillington have been laid off—

Mr. Ross

There are no Ford workers at Hillington.

Sir F. Maclean

Sorry: Rolls-Royce, but it does really not matter very much which. The fact is that 4,000 workers have been laid off because of an inter-union dispute—not a dispute between the employer and the workers, and any would-be foreign investor reading the Scottish or British Press will find dozens of such news items. Whatever the right hon. Gentleman may say, that sort of thing will not encourage people to invest in Scotland at a time when more investment is what we in Scotland need most. And, if they do not invest, that will not help the right hon. Gentleman or us or anybody else, least of all the workers concerned.

One of the most encouraging things about the United Kingdom employment figures is that the most marked improvement is in the Scottish figures. And I believe that, in spite of what the right hon. Gentleman has said, that improvement will continue even more strongly when the effects of our entry into the European Economic Community begin to be felt.

I am delighted, and I am sure that my constituent, the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Lambie), is equally delighted—

Mr. David Lambie (Central Ayrshire)

I did not vote for the hon. Gentleman.

Sir F. Maclean

The hon. Gentleman is still my constituent, whether he voted for me or not. I have always had a feeling that he did not vote for me, especially when he was standing against me as my political opponent. But, although we may disagree on these minor points, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman and I are agreed in welcoming the improvement that there has been in the employment figures for North Ayrshire. But there are still, as there were under the previous Government, far too many unemployed in Scotland, and in West Central Scotland in particular. I should like to suggest to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State one or two ways in which he could help matters in my constituency.

I begin with the island of Bute, which has suffered from depopulation for many years, particularly since the submarine squadron was removed a good many years ago. The island is helping itself in many ways, including the development of its tweed industry and the provision of a seafood factory. I hope that it will also shortly have a bedding factory. But my right hon. Friend could help the island even more by siting a Government Department there. I understand that he is having discussions about that. The island is ideally suited to welcome a Government Department—[An HON. MEMBER: "The Scottish Office?"] Not necessarily the Scottish Office. We want the Scottish Office to continue to keep in the closest of touch. But some Departments can live in little worlds of their own and work out their own problems in comparative isolation. They do not need to be in immediate touch with the centre of things. Everybody said that the Post Office Savings Bank, which my right hon. Friend helped to bring to Scotland, would never manage in Glasgow. In fact, it has managed extremely well.

Another thing that would do very well, and which would possibly benefit by being a little cut off by the sea from the outside world, would be a university or part of a university. I have written to my right hon. Friend about that matter.

Finally I know that the word "marina" is not a very popular word, but the extremely go-ahead Rothesay Town Council has a plan for one which the Scottish Office is considering, and I hope favourably, at this moment.

The Isle of Arran has recently made an approach to the Prime Minister, of which I know my right hon. Friend will be aware, to secure entry for the Isle of Arran to the Highlands and Islands Development Board. I hope that that will be favourably considered. That is a matter which I have put before to my right hon. Friend.

I was glad to hear my right hon. Friend mention the tourist industry and the encouraging things which he said about it. However, something far less encouraging for the tourist industry is the recent Fire Precautions (Loans) Bill, which will make life very difficult—and I took the matter up in a different context recently—for the small hotelier.

The prospects in North Ayrshire, both in my constituency and the constituency of the hon. Member for Ayrshire, Central, are not too bad. Certainly the prospects at Irvine are good.

Mr. Lambie

Is it not correct that in the belt from Saltcoats to Kilmarnock there is one of the highest areas of unemployment in Scotland? There is 14 per cent male unemployment in the town of Saltcoats and the hon. Gentleman's constituency? Is that prosperity?

Sir F. Maclean

I said that I thought that the prospects were better. I have already said that the unemployment figures are too high. The figure of 14 per cent. in Saltcoats is one that is open to debate. In fact, I was debating it only last Friday with the father of the hon. Member for Ayrshire, Central, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will agree that his father is as formidable a debater as he is. In any event, we are both agreed that something needs to be done about the unemployment figure. The hon. Gentleman's father was one of the people who told me that he regarded the prospects of development at Irvine as quite encouraging.

There are other encouraging signs. First, there is the firm of William McCrindle and Sons, which has already started, with, I am glad to say, help from the Government, a flourishing engineering works near Ardrossan and is now talking of developing the shipyard at Ardrossan. If anything comes of those projects it should employ a couple of hundred men. That may not seem very many but it will reduce the local unemployment figures in the area by a pretty large bite.

I have been invited by the Saltcoats Council, which is so largely composed of the family of the hon. Member for Ayrshire, Central, and other local authorities, to take a deputation to see the Under-Secretary of State for Development. I know that the hon. Gentleman will join me in that deputation next week. One of the things we want to discuss is the need for better road communications from North and Central Ayrshire to Glasgow and to the South. That is a matter which should be given serious consideration by the Government. Again, some time ago the Secretary of State told us that £60 million would be devoted to public works and Scotland with the object of giving local employment. The experience of my constituents has not been fruitful in that respect. They keep on putting up schemes and the schemes regularly seem to get shot down by the Scottish Office. I hope that we shall be luckier in future. However, we shall have an opportunity to discuss them with my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Development.

I know that hon. Members from both sides of the House would be disappointed if I did not say a word about Hunterston. It is not a subject on which we always see eye to eye. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward Taylor) and the hon. Member for Ayrshire, Central do not agree with me.

The Government have been violently attacked from all quarters for not siting a mammoth green field steel complex at Hunterston. But the fact is that it would not have made any sense for them to have done so. It has now been clearly demonstrated that Hunterston is not the right place for a mammoth steel complex. To put one there in the teeth of all the evidence would be to squander thousands of millions of pounds of the taxpayers' money on what could only be a white elephant.

Fortunately, instead of trying to transport the whole thing to North Ayrshire, the Government have done the sensible thing and have left the Scottish steel industry where it is in Lanarkshire and are now going to rationalise it, make it more economic and, ultimately, increase its productive capacity by around 30 per cent. That is quite a big increase at a time when we should be concerned to increase productivity all round. A modern steel industry will be judged by the quality and the quantity of the steel that it produces and the prices at which it can produce it where it is wanted. A steel industry that falls short of these standards is likely to be doomed to disaster.

Mr. George Lawson (Motherwell)

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not want to exaggerate what the Government have said in the White Paper. If he looks a little more closely he will see that what is proposed is an increase over 10 years of 2 per cent. per annum compound which will be just beyond 20 per cent. over 10 years. I am sure that he will join with me in insisting that we want very much more than that in Scotland.

Sir F. Maclean

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman who, I am the first to admit, knows more about these things than I. I hope that he will continue to know more than I do about steel from first hand experience. Perhaps my right hon. Friend will clear the matter up. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the increase is over 10 years and that perhaps 30 per cent. is an exaggeration. Between 20 per cent. and 30 per cent. would probably be more accurate.

If the steel industry is not going to Hunterston, what will happen there? We all want development but we want the right development in the right place. If it had been clear that Hunterston was the best site in Europe for a major steel complex and that Scotland's future prosperity depended on its being sited there, nobody would have resisted it.

We now know that that is not so. But the trouble is that over the last four or five years the name Hunterston has acquired a new significance. It has become a slogan, a myth, a kind of magic symbol. A lot of people who have never been there and who know nothing about it still persist that everything depends on sending something to Hunterston whether it is suitable or unsuitable, whether it is economic or uneconomic and however disastrous it may be to the environment.

Today, there is once again talk of an oil refinery being sited there, either by an Italian or by an American company. Why should this be when we already have an adequacy, if not a surplus of refining capacity in Scotland, and when, as we all know, siting a refinery at Hunterston would probably mean that BP would have to abandon the proposed extension of its existing refinery at Grangemouth, which is from every point of view a much better and more convenient place for a refinery? Why should anyone want a refinery at Hunterston?

The answer is not far to seek. As I have said, there is at present an adequacy if not a surplus of refining capacity in the United Kingdom. But there is a shortage of refining capacity in the United States. Why is it that the Americans, who are enterprising people, do not build themselves more refineries in their own country? The answer is two-fold. First, having learnt by their own mistakes, the Americans have extremely strong antipollution regulations which make the siting of a refinery in a green field site anywhere in the United States a very difficult undertaking. Secondly, the financial inducements rightly offered by the British Government to bring industry to development areas in Scotland are extremely attractive to foreign firms, as one hopes that they would be. And in this instance, I gather that if a refinery were sited at Hunterston the cost to the British tax payer would be about £120,000 a job. So we as tax payers would be paying through the nose to save the beauty sports of Florida and California while handing over our own Clyde coast to the oilmen to defile and pollute to their heart's content.

It is not as if a refinery sited at Hunterston would make any useful contribution to the British economy or to our own employment problems. It would employ probably only a few hundred men, almost all of them certainly from outwith the area, and probably not many more than would lose their jobs in tourism or in agriculture by the advent of such a refinery. The crude oil would be imported direct from the Middle East and the refined product would be shipped direct to the United States, which would leave nothing behind for us but the stink and stench. The profits, meanwhile, would go to the Italian or the American oilmen. For them it is certainly an extremely attractive proposition, but not for us. We all want the right development in the right place, but if ever there were a case of the wrong development in the wrong place, it would be an oil refinery at Hunterston.

Not more than a couple of years ago, there was the longest and most expensive public inquiry ever held in Scotland. It was ably presided over and supported by every kind of technical and expert advice. We all admit that the inquiry was absolutely impartial. After examining this question from every possible angle, it arrived at a series of very sensible conclusions. I want the Government to have another look at them. I believe that if they do so, the planning blight, which has hung over Hunterston and the rest of North Ayrshire for so long and held up normal development in other fields, will finally be removed.

5.25 p.m.

Mr. Russell Johnston (Inverness)

In a short debate like this, one can make only so many points and I intend to make, briefly, a limited number.

As the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) rightly said, the unemployment figures in Scotland are grim and the prospects are also uncertain. This is, therefore, not really the time to interchange quotations and abuse. We have to look at the conditions causing the situation and ask ourselves what, if anything, can be done to cure it. I want to make four general points.

First, I think that the effect of automation is very deep and very profound on the unemployment figures. I do not think that it is any longer useful to talk about the need for labour-intensive industry when everyone is striving to produce capirtal-intensive industry. The hon. Member for Bothwell (Mr. James Hamilton) gave an example of industry in his constituency which cost a great deal but produced only 20 jobs.

Secondly, and related to that question, is the problem of industrial relations. I know that there is no time to go into this and that this is not an industrial relations debate, but we cannot get round the fact that with industrial relations under stress and the country in a situation of confrontation, as it were, this harms the possibility of industrial revival. Thirdly, it is difficult, and will become increasingly so, to look any length of time ahead in industry because it changes so extremely quickly.

Fourthly, at this time we are supposed to be in a freeze. I think that there is one item of the freeze, so-called, which has a particular bearing on industry, investment and inflation. This is the whole question of bank interest rates which, since Christmas, during the period of freeze, have gone up by one-third from 5 or 6 per cent. to 9 per cent. This is affecting everyone's thinking on investment and is a considerable promoter of inflation in itself.

It is against the background of these four factors that I want to make my few remarks. If we try to kid the people of Scotland that there is some instant solution, we are not doing our job, because there is not. We have to stop pretending that private industry will ever again intentionally go in for the development of labour-intensive industry. Go into any board room, private or nationalised, and say, "I have found a way of saving so many jobs", and one gets an instant round of applause. Therefore, Government generally must accept the consequences of this and accept that if we are prepared as a nation to subsidise people to be unemployed, we must look to subsidising employment as well, and we must do so much more consciously than in the past. We must work towards some form of job guarantee in the future. I say that as a Liberal quite consciously.

We have it already, although in a haphazard way. But if we removed the regional employment premium and all the other subsidies given to industry in Scotland in a sort of Powellite apocalypse, letting them be whisked away, three-quarters of Scottish industry would collapse overnight because it is so much dependent on them. We must be consciously trying to improve manpower forecasting. The weakness of the Government's White Paper on training is the separation of training from the forecasting of the jobs available.

What specific needs are there? Oil development has inevitably and naturally been raised. Liberals have argued from the beginning that there should be a development corporation, which would negotiate with the oil companies, would be concerned with the environment and would use some of the revenues when they are eventually available for regional development. I still think this is the right thing to do. I will not enlarge on this because I have spoken of it before. It is not good enough for the Secretary of State to talk about "winning jobs" for Scotland in the oil industry because the Government have consciously pursued a laissez-faire attitude throughout.

The important question about the oil industry is the future. Already we have perhaps lost the first round. There is still the question of underwater technology the moment when we go over the Continental Shelf and into deep water. It is distressing to find something like the Heriot Watt Institute of Underwater Technology so badly financed. The Government ought to look at this.

There is the whole question of the general assistance for industry throughout Scotland and the internal regional aids which will be available. The Secretary of State mentioned the EEC. The projected regional fund has been talked about in the EEC for a long time. What rôle does the Scottish Office have in negotiating with our EEC partners not only about the size of the regional fund but also about the relationship between the central and peripheral areas, and what effect that is likely to have on Scotland? Will there be anything to replace the regional employment premium or are we waiting for something, hopefully, at the end of 1973? That is what it looks like. The present indications are that the regional fund will not go anywhere near to producing the £40 million which has been referred to.

How does the Secretary of State see the internal differentials within Scotland working out? Many hon. Members will recall the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs which pointed out that there was now very little differential between the Highland Development Board Area and the rest of Scotland and the special development areas. How does he see this working out? He also mentioned tourism. It is a fact that the advantage of SET relief which the tourist industry in the Highlands enjoys will be removed with the application of VAT.

Civil service dispersal has been mentioned and has certainly been promised. We would like some indication of what share Scotland is likely to have. Ocean-span is presumably dead like Hunterston. The Secretary of State never mentioned it today whereas he has mentioned it before in terms of approbation. There seems to be a distressing lack of new ideas from the Government. One wonders why if a "think tank" under Rothschild is necessary in London there should not be something of the sort in the Scottish Office to look at things and see whether there are new solutions, because the problems are deeper than the Government have been prepared to concede.

In conclusion it seems to me that our present unemployment situation is much more deeply dangerous—and I suppose this applies to parts of England—than it has been in the recent past because of the forces I have mentioned. This does not seem to be properly and fully appreciated. There are resources but in connection with, for example, North Sea oil they are not being properly handled. One reads about the Norwegians striking bargains with Phillips which are far better than anything the British Government have succeeded in doing.

It is all very well for the Minister to shake his head in a thoughtful and phlegmatic kind of way. I suppose that Ministers learn to do that after a time. This is clearly the case with the Norwegian Government's demand for a 50 per cent. stake in the construction and operation of the pipeline from the Ekofisk oil and natural gas field. It is much better than anything we have managed to obtain.

Mr. Chataway

The hon. Gentleman will have his own view about the speed with which it was right for successive Governments to develop North Sea oil in our part of the North Sea. This is one of the determining factors.

Mr. Johnston

I take the point about the disagreement over speed. This makes a difference but I do not think that it invalidates the point. The Norwegian Government pursued a different policy from Her Majesty's Government and I think that the Norwegian Government is probably right in the long run.

There is, however, no time to pursue this particular argument for many hon. members wish to speak. There are resources and with self-government to focus national pride and concern I believe we can make progress. But the future is pretty tough and we would be foolish not to recognise this.

5.35 p.m.

Mr. Ian MacArthur (Perth and East Perthshire)

The hon. Member for Inverness (Mr. Russell Johnston) has said that the future is pretty tough. With respect, I would suggest that the future always is. I do not believe that the employment outlook in Scotland is quite as depressing as he suggested. After all, in North-East Scotland which touches largely on the area he represents, we are now faced with the greatest development of natural resources which Scotland has seen, not this century as my right hon. Friend said, but at any time in Scotland's history.

I would like to turn to the text of the motion moved by the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross). I do not want to be discourteous but I must say that I regard this as yet another piece of political opportunism by the Opposition. Last week they were chasing the votes of pensioners in this week's by-elections. Now they are making a desperate last-ditch bid to win votes in Dundee on Thursday by distorting the unemployment position in Scotland.

Last week they failed, and little wonder, because it was the Conservative Government and not their Labour predecessors who took care of the pensioners, just as it was the Conservative Government who acted to look after the over-80s, to increase pensions more than the cost of living and to introduce yearly reviews of pensions. Where Labour talked Conservatives acted, not least in the matter of the special Christmas payment to pensioners. It is no wonder that last week the hon. Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. Baxter) denounced his right hon. Friends for their hypocrisy. I thought he might do so today but instead he has left, presumably in disgust.

The right hon. Gentleman should be denounced today because we have had the same hypocritical approach as we had last week. Anyone hearing the right hon. Gentleman today would be justified in thinking that unemployment in Scotland was rising. In fact it is falling. Over the last year the fall was 27,000. The Government have thus reversed the rising trend under Labour which continued until the winter of 1971–72. I object to the cheap electioneering of the right hon. Gentleman, despite the fact that this afternoon it was so ineffective.

He pretends to be the champion of the unemployed. The right hon. Gentleman is a broken reed when it comes to economic forecasting. It was he who, just before the 1966 election, forecast an increase in employment in Scotland of 60,000 jobs by 1970. He produced 165 pages of White Paper to prove it. In the event he did not gain the promised 60,000 extra jobs. Instead he lost 82,000. His legacy to Scotland was a shortfall of 142,000 jobs. If he had fulfilled the hopes which he presented to Scotland on the eve of a General Election in a blaze of publicity there would have been 142,000 more people at work in Scotland in 1970 than proved to be the case.

Mr. Lawson

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would like to be honest. Is he not doing exactly what he accuses us of having done, while we were the Government? He is talking of the gross, not the net, figures. There was a vast increase of new jobs, and also a vast loss of old jobs. This has been happening all the time. Why can he not do what he lectures my right hon. Friend about doing—be honest?

Mr. MacArthur

Before the hon. Gentleman gets so steamed up, he should read his right hon. Friend's White Paper, which I have before me. That spoke—in net terms, exactly as I am doing—of an increase of 60,000 jobs. The hon. Gentleman must not get so hot under the collar. My figures are absolutely correct and there is no dishonesty about it. If there were any dishonesty in the argument, it was in the right hon. Gentleman's White Paper, producing figures that he could not have fulfilled. If the right hon. Gentleman had kept to his promises in his pre-election White Paper, there would have been 142,000 more people in jobs in Scotland in 1970. We have heard not one word of apology or regret from the right hon. Gentleman. Nor did he, when in office, try to withdraw his discredited White Paper.

Perhaps some part of this miserable failure was brought about by the right hon. Gentleman himself. Before the 1966 election, he was rightly pointing to the service industries as generators of growth in Scotland, but after the General Election, he slapped on the selective employment tax, perhaps the most damaging achievement of Socialist inventiveness, and went on to increase it twice. So the present Government were bequeathed 142,000 fewer people in employment than the right hon. Gentleman had promised, a crippling selective employment tax which hit the very service industries which he promised to help, and a rising trend of unemployment.

Also, we know now that the Labour Government ran away in June 1970 when they saw the growing shadow of coming events. A Member of the Labour Cabinet at that time has told us that they ran away from rising prices. In the same way, they ran away from rising unemployment. I condemn them for that, as I congratulate my right hon. Friends on their part in reversing the trend.

But it is a great pity for Scotland, and perhaps for Parliament, that the Opposition seek to make cheap political capital out of Scotland's high unemployment and refuse to recognise the improvement that has taken place—a drop, over the last year, of 21 per cent. in the number unemployed.

All of us know that unemployment has been and is intolerably high in Scotland. I suggest, too, that it represents a terrible waste of our largest natural resource—not oil, important though that is, but the skill and talent of our people. Over the years, there has been a substantial growth in the new industries that we need. That growth has taken place under Conservative and Labour Governments. One only has to travel across industrial Scotland today to see the fundamental change in the pattern of employment which has taken place since the war. This is a great thing for Scotland.

But the point is that it has happened. This change has been occurring. It is wrong for hon. Members to discount it and to pretend that we live in a state of gloom and decline. That is simply not true. There has been this substantial growth, but it has not yet been enough to offset the decline in the older industries. Yet every year brings a healthier balance, and the economic base in Scotland is constantly improving.

What we need now, above all, is the prospect of growth in the United Kingdom as a whole, and this prospect has now become a reality. Instead of the stagnation in Britain over which right hon. Gentlemen opposite presided, there is now growth, clearly shown by every economic indicator. This growth, in the United Kingdom as a whole, is a prerequisite for real and meaningful expansion in Scotland. But growth is the child of confidence, and confidence will grow only if the Government are seen to be successful in the fight against inflation.

It is therefore depressing to see and hear hon. Members opposite doing so much, openly or tacitly, to support the forces which are trying to undermine that fight. I should like to believe that both sides of the House could join in the fight to reduce unemployment and in the related battle against inflation, because this would be in Scotland's interests. But the Opposition, setting their short-sighted eyes on Dundee this Thursday, show no sign of comprehending this national need.

I should like to believe, also, that the Opposition would take more care to present Scotland fairly to industry outside. Scotland is not a pessimistic country. A wave of optimism is surging through the country, inspired by the great opportunities following the discovery of oil and presented by the growth of the United Kingdom economy and our entry of the EEC. Yet the Opposition live in permanent gloom. Their faces fall further with every piece of good news.

There are other forces in Scotland that I suggest should consider the harm they could do our industrial prospects. To take perhaps the smallest example, students who demonstrated in Stirling University in the way they did should reflect on the publicity which followed the event and on what it might have done to shape people's opinion of young people in Scotland. The councillors of Clydebank and elsewhere might pause for a moment to think of the impression they give of local authority life in Scotland, when they pick and choose between the laws they will obey or reject.

These people are not putting up barricades in the cause of freedom. What they are doing is undermining the very foundations of life in Scotland. What industrialist would think seriously about setting up a new factory in an area which badly needs jobs when he sees the leaders of that community, on the local council, as in Clydebank, defying the law, and defying it in a bogus cause? By defying it, after all, they are denying help to the very tenants who need that help. So they are acting not only illegally but also stupidly. Add all this together, and the impression given of the local council is pretty depressing.

I suggest that, because it is events of this kind that hit the headlines—it is always bad news that makes news, and not good news—these are the very facts of life in Scotland that tend to be regarded as the way Scotland is. I believe that what they represent is the way that Scotland is not, but this is the image of life that is being conveyed to the South.

Mr. Lawson rose—

Mr. MacArthur

I hope that the hon. Gentleman is on a better point this time.

Mr. Lawson

I would have agreed with the hon. Gentleman very much if I were not so conscious that he had done his share, and more than his share, of what he is now condemning, when he was on this side of the House.

Mr. MacArthur

I have no idea what the hon. Gentleman means. Perhaps he would develop that point—

Mr. Lawson

I should be delighted to have the opportunity to do so.

Mr. MacArthur

I have no idea what he is referring to. The hon. Gentleman cannot accuse me of ever, in my political or private life, suggesting to any local authority or anyone else that the law should be defied. If a law is unpopular, there are democratic ways of seeking to change it, but it must not be defied.

Mr. Lawson

I am talking of the extremely partisan line which the hon. Member always takes and took, for example, when his party was on this side of the House and as he is doing today—

Mr. MacArthur

About what?

Mr. Lawson

I have not much chance now to develop the point but the hon. Member started by misrepresenting the Opposition on the matter of the net loss of jobs. He is still misrepresenting the position.

Mr. MacArthur

I have no idea what the hon. Member is talking about in what appears to be a near state of hysteria. If he says I have misrepresented the position, I refer him to paragraph 1 of the White Paper produced by his right hon. Friend. I have presented the figures fairly and honestly, as I have done over the years. The hon. Member must not jump on me in this way. It is unfair and wrong. If he wants to make charges against me I shall be happy to give way if he will take the opportunity to make those charges in clear terms so that I can answer them. Will he do so now?

Mr. Lawson

The hon. Member may recall an occasion in May 1969 when I dealt with the question, for example, of loss of jobs, and when I explained the position the hon. Member was very partisan as probably nobody on this side would be, and denounced what was happening in gaining new work for the loss of old work. On that question he was partisan to an extreme degree in denouncing what we were doing, and he is now partisan to an extreme degree in presenting the other side of the picture.

Mr. MacArthur

Perhaps the hon. Member will send me particulars so that I can answer them.

Mr. Lawson

I will gladly do it.

Mr. MacArthur

I have presented the picture honestly, and I am sorry that the hon. Member has strayed from allegations about breaking the law, which I resent deeply.

I return to the point that I was making. Clydebank and other local authorities who have voted against implementing the Housing Act are doing very grave harm to Scotland let alone to those tenants who are most hard up. I hope that they, and hon. Gentlemen who, perhaps, sometimes may support them, will think again before they continue in their rebellion, because this does harm, not to the Government but to the Scotland which all of us want to see prosper.

In short, I ask the House to reject the Opposition's motion. Their approach to the critical problem of unemployment will not help them and certainly it will not help Scotland.

5.52 p.m.

Mr. Peter Doig (Dundee, West)

The Secretary of State said that this amendment was a feeble attempt to discredit the Government. I would say to him—

Mr. Gordon Campbell

Will the hon Member allow me?

Mr. Doig

I have hardly begun.

Mr. Campbell

It was the motion, not the amendment.

Mr. Doig

All right. The right hon Gentleman is quibbling. Never mind The motion, he said, was a feeble attempt to discredit the Government. I would say to him that in the eyes of the public this Government have discredited themselves.

If they want to talk about trends I remind them that the trend was in the right direction. I remind the right hon. Gentleman that in 1921 in Dundee the unemployed numbered 43,000. By 1932 the number had gone down to 38,000. So the trend at that time was in the right direction. At that time there were still more than 40 per cent. of the working population of Dundee unemployed and without a job. Would the right hon. Gentleman be happy about that? The public are not worried about trends. The public are worried about actual figures and the actual figures under this Government are deplorable, as I will try quickly to show.

I take Dundee for example because it is mentioned in the motion and because I believe that it is typical of many places in Scotland. We have in Dundee at present an unemployment rate of 6.2 per cent. I do not like dealing in percentages. I prefer dealing with numbers and with people because they are far more important. That percentage means that 5,461 persons who want jobs have now got jobs. Since the Government took over, it is interesting to note, unemployment in Dundee has never been as low as in the month when it was highest under the Labour Government. In other words, the lowest unemployment under this Government is much higher than when it was highest in the whole period of the Labour Government, and that is quite significant.

Secondly, the unemployment figure in Dundee has never been less than 4,350 under this Government. Since December 1970 it has never been under 5,000. On 18 occasions it has exceeded 6,000; on eight occasions it has exceeded 7,000; twice it has exceeded 8,000; and on one occasion it reached 22,125. That is the record under this Government. Under the Labour Government, to take a comparison of only three single months, the unemployment figure in Dundee never exceeded 4,000, and then only marginally and in the worst month it was only 4,102, a figure lower than the lowest under this Government's record.

To take a fair comparison we have to take a monthly average over the whole period. The monthly average in Dundee during the whole period of the Labour Government was 2,522. In Dundee the monthly average under the Conservative Government is 6,653. We have to compare 2,522 under the previous Labour Government with 6,653 under this Government. If the right hon. Gentleman thinks that that trend is in the right direction he must have had a form of education different from that which I had.

Mr. Ross

He did.

Mr. Doig

It was certainly in a different place, I agree, but I think there was more logic in mine.

It has been pointed out that last summer there were 20,000 school leavers. In Dundee we have almost 400 boys and girls not who left school at that time but who, having left the previous year, are still unemployed. That is a long time for these young people to be without a job, and yet that is the period of which the Secretary of State is proud. I cannot for the life of me see where there is anything to be proud of in that.

The Secretary of State asks, do we want to improve the employment situation? What in the name of goodness does he think we have been trying to do since the Government took over? What started this disastrous record of unemployment in Dundee? There was creation of special development areas by the Labour Government where pit closures had taken place which started this increase in unemployment. As Dundee was no longer able to offer new industry the highest incentives, it began to suffer. Under the Labour Government steps were always taken before the situation got very bad. What have the present Government done to correct this?

There have been deputations to the Secretary of State for Scotland and to the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. Those deputations included local Members of Parliament, the Lord Provost, who is now Tory candidate in the by-election in Dundee—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I do not think hon. Members opposite will be very proud of the record, and the Lord Provost is not very proud of this Government.

Mr. MacArthur

He will be here next Tuesday.

Mr. Doig

He will not. Other councillors went on the deputations as well, and we had representatives of the Chamber of Commerce, which is very loath to go on deputations of any kind. We had the city Labour Party, the trades council, and all sorts of bodies represented on the deputations. They went with one request to the Secretary of State for Scotland and to the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, and that one request was that Dundee should be granted special development area status so that it could compete on equal terms. What has happened? Absolutely nothing, after all this time. We are still patiently waiting for the Government to do something about it.

Instead of curing the problem, the Conservative Government have made it worse. They have announced the ending of the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation, they have relaxed control over industrial development certificates, they are ending the regional employment premium in 1974 and they have increased the number of special development areas. All this is hardly an incentive to cure Dundee's unemployment rate—exactly the reverse.

Mr. Gordon Campbell

Did not the hon. Gentleman hear me say at the beginning of the debate that the Dundee unemployment rate had improved a good deal more than the Scottish average?

Mr. Doig

If the right hon. Gentleman did not understand the figures I gave, I hope that he will read them in HANSARD. The message is clear. The unemployment figures every month under the Conservative Government have been higher than the figures for the highest month under the previous Labour Government. That is clear to everyone except the Secretary of State. Perhaps that is why we are in this mess.

Dundee wants the top rate of incentive. When it has been given the top rate it has shown that it is capable of attracting new industries. When Dundee had the top incentives under the Distribution of Industries Act 1945 it attracted so many new industries that the jute mill owners said to the Board of Trade, "For goodness' sake stop bringing new industries to Dundee". That is how successful it was. If Dundee is allowed to compete on equal terms with other areas, it can still attract industry.

The 1964 Labour Government reduced unemployment in Dundee to below 2,000. That was virtually full employment, because the number of people who were out of work was less than the number of vacancies. Our basic industry, jute, has been steadily declining for a long time. Most of our big foundries have gone. The Labour-controlled Dundee Corporation has appointed at its own expense an ex-Lord Provost as the council's "Mr. Industry". The corporation is building at its own expense an extra advance factory. The Dundee Chamber of Commerce has pioneered trade missions overseas.

What can the Government do now to reduce Dundee's unemployment? They can start by paying for the advance factory that Dundee Corporation is building at a cost of £67,000 so that it can be let on the same terms as the Government's advance factories. The Corporation cannot do as the Government do and give two years' free rental. The Corporation has to charge 62p a square foot for this factory of 11,000 sq. ft. that it is building at its own expense.

The Robb Caledon shipyard, which is paying off boilermakers for lack of work, has recently tendered for two cable repair ships for the Post Office. After the submission of the tender, when the shipyard was faced with redundancies, inspectors came round to check, and the Government decided to start the tendering process all over again. I asked the De- partment of Trade and Industry to speed up the placing of the contract, but instead of doing so the Department is asking for fresh tenders. Why?

The Department of Trade and Industry informed a deputation from Dundee and Aberdeen that 275 supply ships would be required by North Sea oil companies by 1975. I asked the Department to authorise the advance building of a few of these ships in Scottish shipyards, which have not had an order for one, on the same principle as the building of advance factories is authorised. But still there has been no action. The Department refused to authorise the building of any of the supply ships and not one of them is being built in a Scottish shipyard.

Why did the Government authorise a £2½ million development at Montrose Harbour to provide specialised facilities for work boats servicing North Sea oil rigs when facilities are already available in Dundee? Will the Government wake up before it is too late and spent some of the £80 million they estimate they will receive in rents and royalties from North Sea oil? We are told that the balance of payments will benefit from North Sea oil by £800 million in 1980. Would not it be a good idea to invest some of this money now in employment in Scottish shipyards?

With the unemployment in our area, it is shocking to think that we shall be paying off men in the Dundee shipyards when we know that there will be a tremendous demand for ships for North Sea oil, for the building of which Dundee and all the shipbuilding yards on the East coast of Scotland are ideally situated. Yet not one order for a ship has yet come to any shipyard on the east coast.

The Government should come to their senses and get in on this. A private firm which saw a demand for 275 supply ships worth approximately £1 million each would be prepared to build some of them at a loss to start with so as to get in. But the Government will not authorise the building of any of the ships in advance. The Government have a lot to answer for and they will get their answer from the electorate in the Dundee by-election.

Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker

Order. The Front Bench spokesmen were to begin at 6.20 p.m., but we have arranged a little extra time for this debate. I hope that we can have now three or four speeches, each of under 10 minutes, two from each side of the House.

6.8 p.m.

Mr. Edward Taylor (Glasgow, Cathcart)

We do not need a debate to convince us that unemployment is a serious problem in Scotland which causes a great deal of misery to all those who are affected by it. What we should be discussing today is whether the action which is being taken is helpful and whether we are going along the right lines. I was depressed by the speech of the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) who, while deploring the situation, made only one positive suggestion, which was the extension of public ownership.

Those of us who have studied the Scottish position will accept—as the hon. Member for Motherwell (Mr. Lawson) accepted—that there is a race between the increase in new jobs and the rundown in our traditional industries. It is undeniable from the official figures provided by both Governments that the biggest job loss in Scotland has been from the State industries. There is good reason for this. There has been a massive decline in the railways. The steel industry has been declining over years. There has thus been a substantial reduction of employment in the State industries, and we have to consider whether we are winning the race of new industries against old ones. We have to consider what was the situation in 1970 and what it is now.

There are three facts which cannot be denied. First, in 1970 when this Government came to power, we had 85,000 unemployed, and the unemployment figures were rising rapidly. We now have more unemployed because it is not possible to create new jobs in a short time, but unemployment is falling and we hope that trend will continue.

Secondly, in 1970 industrial production, which is the key to employment, was stagnant. Industrial production is now going ahead faster than at any time during the last 10 years. Thirdly, in 1970 there was a substantial gap in wages between Scottish and English workers. It is undeniable that that gap has almost disappeared.

It is also undeniable that in 1970 there was considerable uncertainty on Clydeside. Even after periodic injections of cash to bail out shipyards, we had a great deal of uncertainty and considerable redundancy. It is undeniable that on Clydeside today, in Upper Clyde and, of course, in Scott Lithgow, we have more confidence than at any time during the past 10 years. Admittedly the situation is serious, but it is improving and I believe that we are going along the right lines.

What matters is the future. Will this improvement continue? It certainly should, because, although we had an ideological conflict between grants and allowances when this Government came to power, I am sure that the hon. Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Doig) would be the last to deny that a firm or industry setting up in Scotland today can get more cash aid for opening a factory than at any time in Scotland's history. This is because we now have grants and allowances and other loan facilities.

We know that North Sea oil will make a major difference to expansion, and the Industry Act gives the Government a massive amount of cash to spend at will in promoting industries which can expand. To that extent, while I agree that the situation is desperately serious, I feel that it is improving and will continue to do so.

I should like to put to my right hon. Friend some questions about the future which worry me. Most of them relate to the Common Market.

An indication has been given that under the Industry Act a great deal of cash will be made available, but the White Paper indicated that the Government intend these new grants to continue for at least the transitional period of entry. I should like to know whether these additional grants will continue after transition.

Secondly, REP or some other form of payroll negative tax is crucial for Scotland. Will it be possible for REP to continue after the transitional period?

Thirdly, may I ask about Hunterston, on which there are differing views. Private steel firms are expressing interest in developing Hunterston. Will such a decision be subject to the ECSC?

Fourthly, there is the new steel pricing system. May we have an indication whether this will mean higher or lower steel prices in general for Scottish Consumers? More important, for the North and the North-East where the new industrial development is taking place, will it mean that steel in Aberdeen, Inverness and the North-East generally will be considerably more expensive than in Lanarkshire where we have the basing point?

Fifthly, industrial derating is crucial for Scottish industry and jobs. Scottish industry pays 50 per cent. rates. In England the rate is 100 per cent. Will this facility still be permitted under the Common Market rules after the transitional period? My right hon. Friends have consistently said that the Common Market will bring more prosperity to Scotland. However, as right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House have constantly said, prosperity depends on confidence. It is difficult to have confidence unless firms can look to the future and know that all will be well.

Lastly, has there been any interim indication about the outcome of the Hardman Report on the dispersal of offices? Many people with high qualifications, university degrees, and so on, have emigrated from Scotland because jobs in the Civil Service and other highly paid jobs are available only in the South, not in Scotland. It is important to continue the dispersal policy. I hope that my right hon. Friend will tell us something about that matter.

I hope that my right hon. Friend will be able to answer the questions that I have put to him. The other matters which I wanted to raise I will leave for another occasion because of the shortage of time.

6.15 p.m.

Mr. James Bennett (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

The Secretary of State for Scotland in his closing remarks criticised my right hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) for tending to brood on the picture of the Scottish economy. In direct contrast to the right hon. Gentleman's complacency, I brood deeply on the vicious high level of unemployment in Scotland.

I welcome any improvement in the unemployment figures. I wonder whether within the figures are those who have left Scotland to seek employment elsewhere. I do not know whether this is a real drop in unemployment or merely a figure with a difference in the registered unemployed.

Any welcome I may give to the drop in unemployment is tempered by what is happening in Glasgow. The Secretary of State talked of a reduction of 7,000-plus and stressed what is happening in the North-East of Scotland. I am glad about what is happening. Nevertheless, my judgment is tempered by the area in which I find myself. I cannot envisage any future improvement in Glasgow or the Greater Glasgow area, the industrial heart of Scotland, when I look at the figures issued by the Department of Employment.

A year ago I asked the Secretary of State for Employment for the numbers of registered unemployed in Glasgow, not in the Glasgow travel-to-work area. The reply was that in February 1969 there were 21,575 registered unemployed; in February 1970 the figure was 22,702; in February 1971 the figure was 29,737; and in February 1972 the figure was 44,309. In three years, the figure for Glasgow of total registered unemployed had more than doubled. Even if the decrease in unemployment which has now taken place had taken place in that area, it would in no way make up for the tremendous increases which have occurred within these three years.

With one exception, hon. Gentlemen opposite treat this problem with complacency when they hail this drop in unemployment as a major breakthrough. The hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward Taylor) has at least adopted a realistic approach and expressed a hope for something more tangible. I spend most of my time interceding between management and men on redundancy matters. Rationalisation within an industry may lead to greater efficiency, but it also increases redundancy. However attractive redundancy payment may be, it is no substitute for a steady worthwhile job. There is no alternative employment for those who are made redundant.

The Secretary of State for Scotland has already had correspondence about the strong endeavour to keep the technical department of a firm in my area as a viable concern. Admittedly only 40 or 50 men are involved, but they are highly skilled. If they go elsewhere, I wonder, when this long-awaited breakthrough in industry takes place, where we shall find the skilled men to man the new industries.

In February I asked the Secretary of State for Employment. what was the level of male unemployment in the employment exchange area of Glasgow in the years 1970 to 1971; and what are the figures at the latest available date."—[OFFICAL REPORT, 20th February 1973; Vol. 851, c. 50–1.] In reply I was told that in 1970 the average male unemployment rate was 7.5 per cent. In 1971 it was 10.7, while in January 1973, last month, the average was 11.4. The Secretary of State referred to constantly improving figures. Those figures hardly bear out that statement. Wherever else it may be true, it is not true in the West of Scotland.

Unemployment, with all the attendant evils, is a tragedy, but the greater tragedy is the unemployment that is being experienced in Glasgow and in the rest of Scotland. I asked the Secretary of State for Employment what percentage of males within the Glasgow employment exchange area had been unemployed for more than six months but for less than a year, and what percentage had been unemployed for more than 12 months. The answer was that on 8th January 1973, 17.8 per cent. of males unemployed in the Glasgow travel-to-work area had been unemployed for more than 26 weeks but fewer than 52, and that 28.1 per cent. had been unemployed for more than 52 weeks. In other words, 28 per cent. of Glasgow's male work force had been unemployed for more than 12 months.

It is not necessary to have experienced unemployment to realise the despair, the frustration and the uncertainty that it brings in its train. I should not like to dwell upon my own experiences, even though they were so long ago. If a man is unemployed for that length of time, and with no prospect of employment in the future, what is to happen to him if a breakthrough occurs? No matter when it occurs, will there be a place far him in the new industrial set-up? It seems to me that we are prepared to dissipate our best skills whilst waiting for something to happen, irrespective of what happened in years gone by under a different Government.

The constant answer to questions from this side of the House is that when the Government's policies bite there will be a tremendous improvement. All my information is that the reverse has been the case up to now. All I say to the right hon. Gentleman is that if he is confident that there is to be an end to this vicious problem of employment, please let it be soon.

6.22 p.m.

Mr. Iain Sproat (Aberdeen, South)

Everybody is concerned about an unemployment rate which remains intolerably high in Scotland but, equally, everybody should welcome the fact that we have cut the figures and that this trend has been going on for a year. To say that is not to be complacent, but merely to welcome the fact, and long may it continue. I believe that the improvement is primarily the result of the Government's dedicated expansionist policy which will continue to reduce unemployment as long as we have the co-operation in the fight against inflation of the public, of the Opposition and of the moderate and sensible majority of trade unionists.

One of the saddest things about this debate is that few speakers on the other side of the House have said anything about the employment prospects that are opened up in Scotland by our entry into the EEC. I shall not go into the commercial opportunities, but it is sad that hon. Gentlemen opposite will not go to Brussels and that they will not take the opportunity to use what there is in the EEC, namely, the social fund, the European Investment Bank and the regional development fund which is only now being developed and in which we should have a prime part in seeing is developed in such a way as to benefit Scotland. I am sorry that so far Members of the Labour Party are refusing to have anything to do with those things. Their attitude bodes ill for future employment prospects.

I now propose to say something on the subject of North Sea oil, about which so much has rightly been said. I accept that the situation in Aberdeen is exceptional, with an unemployment rate of 2.9 per cent. This is not only better than the Scottish average; it is also better than the United Kingdom figure. I believe that in Aberdeen, as opposed to the North-East area, there is hardly any unemployment except the hard core and school leavers. For skilled men, such as building workers, there are many vacancies—so much so that a bricklayer in Aberdeen can hope to earn between £100 and £150 a week. This is due mainly, but not entirely, to the discovery of oil, because the food processing industry is expanding rapidly in the North-East, and we must not forget the traditional fishing industry which still employs nearly a quarter of the working population in my constituency.

We must not allow the North-East to become too dependent upon oil, or even upon the spin-offs. Oil will be with us for a generation, but we must look beyond that, and it would be sad indeed for Scotland if we allowed ourselves to be so blinded by the discovery of oil that we failed to see the dangers of non-diversification. I am happy to say that the whole of the economy of the North-East appears to be in a growth situation.

In this context I should like to list a few of the fast-changing figures. They are so fast-changing in relation to oil that when NESDA produced a booklet it had to reprint it within a couple of weeks because the figures had changed in the interval. It is interesting to note that there are now 150 new companies in the North-East devoted solely to the development of oil, and 180 companies which have diversified into oil, producing about 1,800 new jobs, not to mention the jobs in diversified industry, which are so numerous that it is impossible to count them. In addition, there are 5,000 jobs in the pipeline, and of these 60 per cent. will go to local men and women.

One interesting indicator of the tremendous growth in activity in the North-East is that of Dyce Airport at Aberdeen. In 1972 the number of passengers handled was 25 per cent. up on 1971, and in January of this year the figures were 35 per cent. up on January of last year. Total movements of aircraft in 1972 were up 40 per cent. on 1971, and in January of this year they were up a staggering 50 per cent. on the same period last year. That gives some indication of what is going on.

There are seven rigs off Aberdeen, and we expect 20 by the middle of the summer. That means about £1 million per year, for servicing each rig, for fuel, clothing, maintenance and wages, being spent mainly in the area. As this is a debate on unemployment I should like to mention that NESDA, which is a cautious and distinguished body, estimates that there will be another 5,000 jobs connected with oil by 1975, plus another 5,000 in spin-offs. It further estimates that there will be 12,000 jobs in oil by 1985, and another 10,000 in spin-offs.

That offers tremendous possibilities for the North-East. Others have made different estimates, but I think that the figures which I have quoted are cautious. They do not include the Highlands, about which others will speak and which mirror to a great extent what is going on in the North-East. We also hope for further oil discoveries off the west coast of Scotland.

Increasingly, the problems of the North-East are the problems of prosperity. We must see to it that when we maximise job opportunities we do not forget to conserve the countryside and the natural amenities, or our historic villages and towns. We must not allow the fishing industry to be pushed aside by oil interests.

Having said all that, I think one can say in truth that for the vast majority of people in the North-East of Scotland the terrible threat of unemployment has been removed for the next generation.

6.29 p.m.

Mr. William Small (Glasgow, Scotstoun)

I have no notes, and I shall be brief.

What manufacturers and developers are looking for is a secure base from which to mount a progressive attack on unemployment. Devaluation was supposed to be a springboard, but as long as we have a floating pound there can be no secure base. I am not such an active faith-healer as some of my opponents.

I now propose to say something about VAT, and I hope that I may have the attention of the Government Front Bench. This is not an anti-Common Market speech. We are in Europe. Value added tax is a charge at the consumer end, so we have to consider it against a wider horizon than just from where it comes. The application of VAT is a tax on the consumer. Britain is a great importing nation, of both manufactured goods and raw materials. The Minister for Industrial Development would do well to take a look at the DISC taxation philosophy of the Americans on shipping. If anything needs promoting, it is shipping, which is labour intensive. A 50 per cent deferral tax under reinvestment is operating under the American system, and in that sense could be applied in Britain. I hope that in the forthcoming Budget the Government will take the apportunity to examine that philosophy of taxation.

When dealing with unemployment the Minister should also look at the aviation industry. I do not know how many right hon. and hon. Members on the Government side of the House are supporters of Concorde, but it is a 1962 design study and we are now, in 1973, getting it knocked all over, in Britain and elsewhere. Let us remember the amount of money behind the technology to enable us to fly supersonic at some time. I am a reluctant Concorde supporter, but if there has to be a cancellation, Heaven help the resulting unemployed and the escalating results, of which I shudder to think. Let us bear in mind the subcontracting to nearly half a million people involved in the project over the years.

I am wary, but hopeful. I hope that North Sea oil makes the big break. It is not a matter of pollution in America. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology states that the Americans have been selling oil too cheaply but do not intend to raise the price. By raising the price we should get a bonus from North Sea oil, and I wish it well.

6.32 p.m.

Mr. Bruce Millan (Glasgow, Craigton)

My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Scotstoun (Mr. Small) and a number of other hon. Members have mentioned the general economic background in the United Kingdom against which we are having this debate about unemployment in Scotland. I do not intend to try to deal with that situation, even briefly, because we shall have ample opportunity for economic debates following the Budget next week. But it seems rather absurd, and positively misleading, for the Secretary of State, for example, to mention the hopeful features in the present situation, including the rise in production, and to mention, for example, the fact that is pointed out in the recent National Institute report, without also referring to the many unsatisfactory features in the present general economic situation.

Next week the Chancellor will be faced with a number of very worrying choices. There is, for example, as the National Institute pointed out, the prospect this year of a record balance-of-payments deficit. There is the problem about public expenditure, which is dealt with in the useful all-party report produced by the Select Committee on Public Expenditure last week. These publications and the points made in them, indicate that there are hopeful features, but also some very disturbing ones. Over the last two or three years a good deal of Government economic policy, in the wider sense, has been misdirected. It has involved a large expenditure of public money but has not achieved some of the objectives which the Government set for themselves. That is particularly true of regional policy. It must be extremely worrying that now, when we are just for the first time seeing some reduction in unemployment in the regions, we have to face these very difficult and to some extent intractable economic problems.

Concerning the numbers, I found it rather offensive to read the self-congratulatory tone of the Government amendment and listen to the self-congratulatory tone of the Secretary of State's speech. It does not seem to be a matter for congratulation on the part of the Government that they have reduced unemployment from 129,000 to 120,000 when, as has been said by my hon. Friends, even now that figure is substantially higher than it was during even the peak month of the Labour Government and still represents an intolerable waste of human and economic potential in Scotland.

The reduction in unemployment over the last month includes more than 2,000 adult students. That would happen in any case. It is nothing to do with Government policy. We are still faced with the fact that the Scottish unemployment position is the highest in Great Britain, and that we have the poorest ratio of vacancies to unemployed persons of any part of Great Britain. There are no less than 7½ unemployed persons to every vacancy at present. There are particular problems about youth employment. They have been lessened to some extent because of the raising of the school leaving age, but they are nevertheless still intolerable because of the damage they do to young people leaving school and looking for work for the first time.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Bridgeton (Mr. James Bennett) said, we have a very serious problem, particularly in West Central Scotland, with long-term unemployment, among males in particular. For male unemployment—perhaps the best indicator of all—the June 1970 figure was 5 per cent., which was still far too high, and the present figure, even after the reductions over recent months, is 7.2 per cent. That is the highest male unemployment figure of anywhere in Great Britain.

The right hon. Gentleman and other Conservative Members have pointed out that unemployment was high in June 1970. I accept that straight away. It was far too high.

Mr. MacArthur

And rising.

Mr. Millan

I am coming to that point in a moment. The Secretary of State went further. He said that unemployment was soaring out of control in June 1970. If that was the position—I do not accept that it was—it seems extraordinary that in October 1970 the Government should have cut back so savagely on regional incentives. If the Government's reading of the situation in June 1.970 was that a serious unemployment problem was getting rapidly worse one would have expected that in October that year they would increase the regional incentives rather than reduce them drastically. One of the objects of the October 1970 minibudget was to save substantial sums of money on regional expenditure. We said then—it is not a question of being wise after the event—that if such policies were put into operation, if investment grants were removed for example, as they were in October 1970, there could only be the most serious consequences on the unemployment situation in Scotland.

In these debates we have on Scottish unemployment I have no wish to continue to go over the history from June 1970, October 1970, and so on. But these things have to be said so long as we find the Government accepting no responsibility for the extremely tragic situation into which they have plunged Scotland—the extremely serious situation we still have today.

We welcomed the Industry Act. Why should we not do so? It was largely the Labour Government's policy. The only trouble is that this policy, which the Secretary of State assured us today was specially tailored to meet Scotland's precise needs, could have come into operation in August 1970 instead of, perhaps, August 1972. The only regret is that the policy was necessary at all. The previous Government's policy, which was largely the same, had been abolished by the present Government in October 1970. We welcomed the conversion. We also welcomed the Industry Act when it was brought into operation. But very little has yet been paid out in Scotland in respect of the new investment allowances. I hope that the Minister will give more information about that. I hope, in particular, that he will say something not about the number of inquiries there have been in Scotland for selective assistance but about the amount of assistance which has been given. In the early weeks, and even before the Bill was passed through the House, there were many such inquiries. We should like to know how much assistance has been given or how much is pledged by the Government under the Act.

If there is one unsatisfactory feature of regional policy, in terms of incentives, it is the position of regional employment premium. We want to have it made clear whether REP or a similar labour subsidy is compatible with our obligations in the Common Market. The Secretary of State, when asked about that at Question Time last Wednesday, did not seem to know; he hesitated; he could not give a precise answer. We are entitled to an answer now.

It is now universally accepted in Scotland—we are still waiting for the opponents of REP to produce themselves or to be produced for us by the Secretary of State—that a continuation of REP or some other kind of labour subsidy—I do not think that REP in its present form is necessarily the right labour subsidy—is essential if we are not to produce an unbalanced package of regional incentives in Scotland far too geared towards capital-intensive rather than labour-intensive industries, and if we are not to push into bankruptcy many Scottish firms which we know—because they have told us so—depend upon REP at present to keep their heads above water.

It is essential that we have a statement on REP. It is no use Ministers saying "It will all be dealt with by September 1974". If there is to be any confidence in planning Scotland there must be definite information about the continuation of a labour subsidy. Industry cannot be expected to plan for the future when there is massive uncertainty at the heart of regional policy.

It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of Civil Service employment in Scotland. If there could be—as we hope and demand that there must be—a massive dispersal of Civil Service employment from London, and if Scotland could share substantially in that dispersal, a considerable boost would be given to the Scottish economy in an area of office employment which is greatly lacking. When this matter has been raised with the Secretary of State he has apparently displayed a certain amount of indifference. I hope that that is a misleading impression. However, the Secretary of State's reaction, for example, to the request of the Lord Provost of Glasgow to meet him about this matter suggests that the Secretary of State has not taken it sufficiently seriously and is not pushing Scotland's interests in the Cabinet as he should be.

Mr. Gordon Campbell

As the hon. Gentleman knows, we are waiting to study the Hardman Report. It was I who convened a meeting, not only with the Lord Provost of Glasgow, but with chairmen of new towns. The hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) pointed out recently that other places besides Glasgow are interested in this. It is a Scottish question. It is a question with which I have been concerned for more than 10 years, because I was a Minister involved in that very important decision and the subsequent events which moved the National Savings Bank from London to Glasgow, which still provides jobs in Glasgow.

Mr. Millan

These little historical reminiscences are becoming rather embarrassing. We want from the Secretary of State a pledge for action on Hardman now—a pledge that he will fight for Scotland's interests in the Cabinet. If the right hon. Gentleman gives that pledge we shall be delighted to hear it, and we shall give him every support. The right hon. Gentleman have given little sign so far in his public utterances that he recognises the importance of the issue.

A number of hon. Members opposite have said that a certain amount of employment is coming to Scotland from North Sea oil. It would be a miracle if it were not. There is bound to be employment in Scotland arising from the exploitation of North Sea oil. We complain about its extent and that there has not been a decisive or sufficiently coherent Government policy to ensure that Scottish industry shares in the jobs that are available now in the exploitation of North Sea oil and, more important, builds up an expertise which will enable Scotland to share in the world wide market for equipment and services in relation to oil exploitation off-shore.

The criticisms which we have made repeatedly of Government policy were borne out by the IMEG Report, which stated: the overall situation still leaves much to be desired. It is instructive to recount that British industry on two former occasions did not gain gain full and lasting advantages from major opportunities to develop business with the petroleum industry. I shall confine my remarks to the question of employment in the servicing industries, although the Government have similarly mishandled the situation about licensing and revenue.

So far the Government's response to the IMEG Report has been inadequate. They have not established an independent agency—the petroleum industry supplies board, as recommended by the report. The Government set up an office, with a branch office in Glasgow employing only eight people, although IMEG recommended an independent petroleum industry supplies board.

The Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry offensively described as nonsense the suggestion that an office of this sort be established in Scotland; he says that it must be established in London, yet he is a Minister in a Department which is supposed to be responsible for regional planning and the dispersal of jobs to the regions where they are desperately needed.

Apart from the Government's failure to set up the PISB, we still do not know what is happening about the other recommendations in the IMEG report, some of which are very important. The Government have made no statement. IMEG recommended that the Government, through the Industry Act, should try to encourage the formation of partnership between British and foreign contractors possessing offshore know-how". This was to get into the offshore contracting business on a 50–50 basis—50 per cent. to a British partner and 50 per cent. to the foreign partner. Have the Government taken action on this?

IMEG recommended that action be taken to establish a wholly British offshore drilling capability". What are the Government doing about that? The IMEG report linked this with direct Government investment, if necessary, in a wholly owned British offshore drilling capacity. We have heard nothing from the Government about that. We have heard nothing about IMEG's proposals about education and training.

We have heard nothing about any plans at Government level to establish the research establishments which will be necessary in Scotland if we are to get the wider exploitation of know-how in this worldwide industry based on Scottish enterprise and experience.

Another recommendation of the IMEG report was that special attention should be paid to the utilisation of engineering industry skills in the West of Scotland belt of high unemployment, and the canvassing of individual firms is suggested by the DTI regional office in Glasgow. What is happening? The report recommended an in-depth study of the opportunities for British participation in all aspects of design and equipment supply in the LNG industry, including the production of LNG carriers—something that my hon. Friend the Member for East Stirlingshire (Mr. Douglas) has been pressing on the Government for nearly a year, with absolutely no response.

Many other features of the IMEG report are worth quoting, and I have picked out only some of the important recommendations. So far we have had no indication how the Government intend to react to those recommendations. Where they have acted they have made only a timid and inadequate response. On other recommendations there has been no response at all. There is a growing feeling that in this respect Scotland is liable to miss the boat in the development of this important industry unless the Government show a sense of urgency and take immediate action.

The debate gives the Minister an opportunity to say what the Government have in mind. If he takes that opportunity, we shall be glad to have provided it, but so far there has been nothing, and in this respect, as in so many others, the situation in Scotland is highly unsatisfactory. Government policy on North Sea oil generally epitomises the kind of policy that we have seen for Scottish employment generally, there has been a failure to recognise the seriousness of the problems; there has been a tendency to blame others for difficulties of the Government's own making: there has been a tendency for action when taken at all to come too late and to be at the expense of periods of considerable hardship for the Scottish people.

It is for those reasons that we are moving this motion of condemnation and it is for those reasons that I ask my hon. Friends to support it by their vote in the Lobby tonight.

6.52 p.m.

The Minister for Industrial Development (Mr. Christopher Chataway)

As my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur) remarked earlier, this has been a debate that has not altogether escaped the influence of the pending by-elections. Not many who have sat through the debate would think that the motion's reference to Dundee was a coincidence. I was sorry to miss the speech of the hon. Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Doig) who, as did the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross), spoke of Robb Caledon and its ordering position. The plain fact, as neither hon. Gentleman mentioned, is that the firm has won an order from the Scottish Transport Group in the last few days.

I was asked about orders for Post Office cable ships. Such an order was brought forward a few months ago when I was Minister of Posts and Telecommunications as part of the programme for advancing orders to be of assistance to Scottish industry. It was made clear to Robb Caledon, when those on the short list were asked to re-tender, that a decision would be reached on that tender within a few days.

I am sorry, therefore, that in part this has been an election debate. Perhaps I may be allowed to say that one is sorry to see in the run-up to these by-elections that a number of totally unjustified hares are being run. An example is the disgraceful article in Labour Weekly suggesting massive redundancies from Ruston Paxman in Lincoln. It is a charge totally without justification, as I believe the firm is to make clear tomorrow.

It has been clear throughout the debate that expansion is now taking place in the Scottish economy at a rapid rate. The fall in unemployment over the past year is only one indication. The CBI's Industrial Trends Survey for Scotland equally paints a picture of industrial expansion and rising investment.

Hon. Members on both sides of the House have been concerned today with what future progress we are to make. Despite his speech, the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock knows perfectly well that throughout the last Parliament there was a steady rise in unemployment.

Mr. Ross

indicated dissent.

Mr. Chataway

The right hon. Gentleman should not shake his head. He knows that unemployment rose from February 1966, when it stood at 2.6 per cent., to February 1970, when it was 4.2 per cent. He knows that he left a rapidly rising unemployment situation. If he is now arguing that the effects of Government economic policies are so instantaneous that nothing done by the Labour Government up to June 1970 had any effect on the next 18 months, I can only say that that is a view to which the Labour Party has been recently converted. One well remembers that at the 1966 election it was not Labour's view that the policies of the Conservative Governments to 1964 were no longer to be felt.

Inevitably, we have heard charge and counter-charge. The right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that there are deep-seated problems in Scotland and he made little contribution to their solution. He knows, as I know, that neither side has a monopoly of wisdom in these matters, and when we look back over regional policy for the past 40 years, nobody pretends that either Conservative or Labour Governments have arrived at a perfect answer. What we say and have said insistently throughout the debate is that the evidence of the past year is that Government measures are working and that the rapidly rising trend of unemployment, gently rising throughout the 1960s, but rapidly rising from 1970, has been reversed, and we have seen significant reductions over the past year.

Nobody will be complacent about that—and I do not believe that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland can be accused of complacency in any sense after his speech today. I strongly resent some of the comments of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan) about my right hon. Friend, because I doubt whether there has ever been a more vigorous champion of Scotland's interests.

In the process of rejuvenating Scottish industry there are a number of matters of major importance, as all hon. Members have recognised. The incentives now offered to industry in Scotland are important and there is no question but that the Scottish Industrial Development Office is now working effectively. The hon. Member for Craigton asked about the position under the Industry Act. The position at 31st January was that we had had 77 applications for selective assistance, which, if successful, would have involved expenditure of more than £14 million in loan interest relief grant or removal grants. According to the applications—and at this stage that is all we have on which to base the figures—projects linked to these applications would create or maintain more than 8,000 jobs. These are clearly early days, but by any standards those are encouraging figures. Offers so far amount to some £3.3 million on 14 applications.

It would seem that firms in Scotland have got off the mark a good deal faster than those in the rest of the United Kingdom in applying for regional development grants. Of about 3,400 applications, amounting to £9.4 million. for the United Kingdom as a whole, Scotland has over 1,500, amounting to £4.5 million. Thus, well over 40 per cent of regional development grant applications at present relate to Scotland, and that is a sign of considerable buoyancy.

How has the Act been working so far? I am encouraged by the fact that over 50 of those firms are located in Scotland. It has been one of our major purposes to ensure that these incentives are directed towards firms indigenous to Scotland. It is immensely important that we attract industry from the rest of the United Kingdom and from overseas, but I believe that a large part of the solution to Scotland's industrial and employment problems lies in enabling Scottish firms to expand and in treating them on exactly the same basis as incoming firms.

There is an encouraging number of applications from small firms. I am looking at the procedures which we adopt here because it is important, especially in Scotland, to encourage the smaller entrepreneur. I want to be sure that the procedures and means by which we administer these grants are the most suitable for small firms, and I am not persuaded of that as yet.

The hon. Member for Inverness (Mr. Russell Johnston), in an interesting speech, discussed the effects of automation and gave it as his opinion that unemployment would inevitably rise and there was little one could do to check it because industries were becoming increasingly capital-intensive. I suggest that he could well direct his attention to what is happening in certain other countries. In Germany, for example, where automation has probably gone faster than it has here, there is none the less a far lower unemployment rate. I do not accept that there is anything in the nature of modern industry which justifies high unemployment.

Mr. Russell Johnston rose—

Mr. Chataway

If the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I must get on. I believe that a large part of the answer there lies in encouraging the service industries. As the House knows, under the Industry Act selective assistance is available to mobile service projects, and here again we are looking at the way we use the powers under the Act, especially the ways in which they are being publicised, to see whether more can be done to attract office jobs to Scotland.

There have been a number of applications which we have not felt able to approve. The Scottish Industrial Development Board, which has the first task in Scotland of vetting any applications for assistance, rightly takes the view that what it wants are viable concerns. I do not believe that there is any impression in Scottish industry that the Act represents any sort of soft touch, and I hope that it will be generally agreed that it cannot make sense from the standpoint of bringing down unemployment to hack projects which are not likely to be viable and have a permanent future. Increasing emphasis has been placed by the Scottish Office and by the board upon viability.

A word now about the advance factory programme, which will have an important part to play, I believe, in continuing the expansion of recent months. In 1972, DTI factories in Scotland were allocated or sold on an extremely encouraging scale. During that year, 64 factories were either let or sold. Hon. Members will have noticed that the Chairman of the Scottish Industrial Estates Corporation said that the level of inquiries and applications in late 1972 and up to date had surpassed all records listed in the past 15 to 20 years.

Dr. J. Dickson Mabon (Greenock)

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Chataway

The hon. Gentleman has not been here during the debate. I hope that he will allow me to get on, because I have a number of points to make and I do not wish to cut into the time for the next debate.

Several hon. Members—the hon. Member for Glasgow, Scotstoun (Mr. Small), for example—laid emphasis upon the need for security, recognising that in attracting investment into Scotland it was essential that there be a secure base. One need not emphasise the importance to Scotland of investment from overseas. From 1965 to 1971, under the last Government, one-fifth of additional manufacturing jobs were provided mainly by American firms—by incoming firms or the expansion of firms already in Scotland.

Many will have seen the report of the Economist Advisory Group, published by the Financial Times which shows the enormous scale at which the development areas have benefited from United States investment and other investment from overseas. It shows how these firms are exporting on a substantial scale, how they represent a high proportion of the research and development effort, and how their performance in nearly every way compares very satisfactorily with their United Kingdom counterparts. The study shows also that the attractions of Great Britain to the overseas investor are substantially increased as a result of our entry into the Common Market.

Mr. Ross

indicated dissent.

Mr. Chataway

The right hon. Gentleman has been nodding so far, and I am sorry that he disagrees there. In fact, that is what the study shows. It shows that two out of every five American companies in this country say that they will be expanding faster than they would have been if we were not members of the Common Market, and it establishes moreover that, had we been members from 1958, there would have been 2,500 million dollars more American investment in this country.

My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward Taylor) put a number of detailed questions to me about grants. I hope that he will forgive me if I write to him instead of answering now.

I hope that there will be no doubt about the importance for employment and stopping the drift of population away from Scotland of our continuing to attract substantial overseas investment. In this context, one is bound to observe that the Opposition's policy is doing nothing to help. Indeed, Labour's programme of June 1970 is a minor disaster in this respect. It promises that a future Labour Government would ensure that the Labour Government has the right to appoint public directors to the subsidiary companies of non-resident multi-nationals and to the main boards of resident multi-nationals: that the State—possibly through the State Holding Company—is able to acquire shares in the parent company of non-resident multinationals. The right hon. Gentleman knows that that is nonsense. He knows that it would have a devastating effect upon Scotland. I have no doubt that it was the ideologues of the Labour Party who inserted something as nonsensical as that, and I hope that it will not be long before the Opposition take the opportunity to withdraw that sort of policy statement, since, clearly, it can only do immense damage to Scotland's employment prospects.

There has been considerable reference to oil developments. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Sproat) spoke of the exciting developments in his part of the world, of the great increases in employment which are resulting, and of certain shortages of labour which are now being shown.

The hon. Member for Craigton surprised me by the questions which he put. I do not know whether he was away in the early part of January when my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry gave a detailed statement on several of the issues which the hon. Gentleman raised. We have lost no time in establishing an offshore supplies office and in appointing a director to it of first-class experience in the field. On nearly ail of the recommendations in the IMEG Report to which the hon. Gentleman referred action is already under way. What we are anxious to do here—

Mr. Millan

There have been two Adjournment debates since we came back from the Recess in which Ministers had an opportunity to tell us what action they had taken. But they have not done so. If the Minister will tell us now we shall be glad to hear it.

Mr. Chataway

The hon. Member knows perfectly well that the specific recommendations in the IMEG report were recommendations for action by the office. None of those things—for example, the setting up of a British drilling company—is something which can be done instantaneously. [Interruption.] The hon. Member goes parroting on, I suppose in some embarrassment, but we have set up an offshore supplies office and appointed a first-class staff to it, and that staff is already in action. Our purpose is to develop in Scotland an offshore supplies industry that will be able to secure not only a substantial proportion of the £300 million of work available in the North Sea but of the £1,000 million of work that will be available as a result of offshore development all over the world.

Here again the Opposition's policy is of no assistance. I was not surprised that neither the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock nor the hon. Member for Craigton mentioned the Labour Party's policy on North Sea oil. Neither of them even mentioned the proposals for nationalisation of North Sea oil. I count that in their favour but I do not count it to the credit of the Opposition that they should be advancing a set of propositions which can only strangle the opportunities of the North Sea. As the Glasgow Herald and many independent observers have made clear, any action along these lines would almost certainly be the surest way to stifle the greatest industrial opportunity Scotland has had this century.

Throughout the debate it has been recognised that if the expansion which is now taking place in Scotland is to be continued there must be continuing growth in the United Kingdom economy. In the United Kingdom economy as a whole industrial production rose between the fourth quarter of 1971 and the fourth quarter of 1972 by 7 per cent. That compares with an increase in industrial production between 1966 and 1970 of a mere 8½ per cent. If that expansion is to continue the Government's battle against inflation is of crucial importance. As a number of my hon. Friends have said, and as the Secretary of State emphasised, holding the line against inflationary settlements is important to the United Kingdom economy as a whole, but it is vital to Scotland. All the arguments about special cases, the pleas for treatment outside the limits of phase 2, must be judged against the effect that increased

costs will have on Scotland, Wales and the English regions.

If it is true that on Wednesday the Opposition are intending to confirm that they are in favour of statutory price control but offer no possibility of a statutory limitation on wages they will be committing themselves to a policy which can mean only industrial stagnation and rising unemployment. The link between inflationary wage settlements and rising unemployment should not be unfamiliar to them. It was only five years ago that the then Prime Minister was arguing in support of a 3½ per cent. ceiling on wage increases, which was 1 per cent. below the rise in costs, and that if it were breached there could be 2½ million unemployed. Anyone who is concerned about unemployment in Scotland, therefore, cannot opt out of the battle against inflation.

Unemployment in Scotland rose steadily through the last Parliament and is now falling. All of us believe it possible, and certainly all of us believe it desirable, that that fall should be continued. The Government's policies are designed to continue that process with high growth, the control of inflation and generous incentives to viable investment. But by running away from the reality of inflation, discouraging overseas investment and some disastrous posturing on North Sea oil the Opposition are doing nothing to assist the process. I ask the House therefore to support the amendment and to reject the motion.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The House divided: Ayes 289, Noes 228

Division No. 64.]	AYES	[7.18 p.m.
Adley, Robert	Blaker, Peter	Campbell, Rt. Hn. G. (Moray & Nairn)
Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)	Body, Richard	Carlisle, Mark
Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)	Boscawen, Hn. Robert	Cary, Sir Robert
Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian	Bossom, Sir Clive	Channon, Paul
Archer, Jeffrey (Louth)	Bowden, Andrew	Chapman, Sydney
Astor, John	Braine, Sir Bernard	Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher
Atkins, Humphrey	Bray, Ronald	Churchill, W. S.
Awdry, Daniel	Brewis, John	Clark, William (Surrey, E.)
Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)	Brinton, Sir Tatton	Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)	Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher	Cockeram, Eric
Balniel, Rt. Hn. Lord	Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)	Cooke, Robert
Batsford, Brian	Bruce-Gardyne, J.	Coombs, Derek
Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton	Bryan, Sir Paul	Cooper, A. E.
Bell, Ronald	Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus,N&M)	Cordis, John
Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)	Buck, Antony	Corfield, Rt. Hn. Sir Frederick
Berry, Hn. Anthony	Bullus, Sir Eric	Cormack, Patrick
Biffen, John	Burden, F. A.	Costain, A. P.
Biggs-Davison, John	Butler, Adam (Bosworth)	Critchley, Julian
Crouch, David	Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)	Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter
Crowder, F. P.	Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)	Redmond, Robert
Davies, Rt. Hn. John (Knutsford)	Jopling, Michael	Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.)
d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry	Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith	Rees, Peter (Dover)
d'Avigdor-Goldsmid.Maj. -Gen. Jack	Kaberry, Sir Donald	Rees-Davies, W. R.
Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.	Kellett-Bowman, Mrs. Elaine	Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David
Digby, Simon Wingfield	Kimball, Marcus	Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon
Dixon, Piers	King, Tom (Bridgwater)	Ridley, Hn. Nicholas
Dodds-Parker, Douglas	Kinsey, J. R.	Ridsdale, Julian
du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward	Kitson, Timothy	Rippon, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey
Dykes, Hugh	Knight, Mrs. Jill	Roberts. Michael (Cardiff, N.)
Eden, Rt. Hn. Sir John	Knox, David	Roberts, Wyn (Conway)
Edwards, Robert (Bilston)	Lambton, Lord	Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)
Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)	Lamont, Norman	Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)
Elliott, R. W. (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne.N.)	Lane, David	Rost, Peter
Emery, Peter	Langford-Holt, Sir John	Russell, Sir Ronald
Eyre, Reginald	Le Marchant, Spencer	St. John-Stevas, Norman
Farr, John	Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)	Scott, Nicholas
Fenner, Mrs. Peggy	Lloyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Langstone)	Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh & Whitby)
Finsberg, Geoffrey (Hempstead)	Longden, Sir Gilbert	Shelton, William (Clapham)
Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)	Loveridge, John	Shersby, Michael
Fletcher-Cooke, Charles	Luce, R. N.	Simeons, Charles
Fookes, Miss Janet	McAdden, Sir Stephen	Sinclair, Sir George
Fortescue, Tim	MacArthur, Ian	Skeel, T. H. H.
	McCrindle, R. A.
Foster, Sir John	McLaren, Martin	Smith, Dudley (W'wick & L'mington)
Fowler, Norman	Maclean, Sir Fitzroy	Soref, Harold
Fox, Mercus	McMaster, Stanley	Speed, Keith
Fry, Peter	Macmillan, Rt. Hn. Maurice (Farnham)	Spence, John
Galbraith, Hn. T. G. D.	McNair-Wilson, Michael	Sproat, Iain
Gardner, Edward	McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)	Stainton, Keith
Gibson-Watt, David	Maddan, Martin	Stanbrook, Ivor
Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)	Madel, David	Stewart-Smith, Geoffrey (Belper)
Gilmour, Sir John (File, E.)	Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest	Stodart, Anthony (Edinburgh W.)
Glyn, Dr. Alan	Marten, Neil	Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.
Godber, Rt. Hn. J. B.	Mather, Carol	Stokes, John
Goodhart, Philip	Maude, Angus	Stuttaford, Dr. Tom
Goodhew, Victor	Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald	Sutcliffe. John
Gorst, John	Mawby, Ray	Tapsell, Peter
Gower, Raymond	Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.	Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)
Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)	Meyer, Sir Anthony	Taylor, Edward M.(G'gow,Cathcart)
Gray, Hamish	Mills, Peter (Torrington)	Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)
Green, Alan	Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)	Taylor, Robert (Croydon, N.W.)
Grieve, Percy	Miscampbell, Norman	Tebbit, Norman
Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)	Mitchell, Lt.-Col. C. (Aberdeenshire, W)	Temple, John M.
Grylls, Michael	Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)	Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Mrs. Margaret
Gummer, J. Selwyn	Moate, Roger	Thomas, Rt. Hn. Peter (Hendon, S.)
Gurden, Harold	Money, Ernle	Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)
Hall, Miss Joan (Keighley)	Monks, Mrs. Connie	Tilney, John
Hall, John (Wycombe)	Montgomery, Fergus	Trafford, Dr. Anthony
Hall-Davis, A. G. F.	More, Jasper	Trew, Peter
Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)	Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.	Tugendhat, Christopher
Hannam, John (Exeter)	Morrison, Charles	Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin
Harrison, Brian (Maldon)	Mudd, David	van Straubenzee, W. R.
Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)	Murton, Oscar	Vaughan, Dr. Gerard
Haselhurst, Alan	Nabarro, Sir Gerald	Vickers, Dame Joan
Hastings, Stephen	Neave, Airey	Waddington, David
Havers, Michael	Nicholls, Sir Harmar	Walder, David (Clitheroe)
Hawkins, Paul	Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael	Walker, Rt. Hn. Peter (Worcester)
Hayhoe, Barney	Normanton, Tom	Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek
Heath, Rt. Hn. Edward	Nott, John	Wall, Patrick
Heseltine, Michael	Onslow, Cranley	Walters, Dennis
Hicks, Robert	Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally	Ward, Dame Irene
Higgins, Terence L.	Orr, Capt. L. P. S.	Warren, Kenneth
	Osborn, John	Wells, John (Maidstone)
Hiley, Joseph	Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.)
Hill, James (Southampton, Test)	Page, Rt. Hn. Graham (Crosby)	White, Roger (Gravesend)
Holland, Philip	Parkinson, Cecil	Wiggin, Jerry
Holt, Miss Mary	Peel, Sir John	Wilkinson, John
Hordern, Peter	Percival, Ian	Winterton, Nicholas
Hornby, Richard	Peyton, Rt. Hn. John	Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick
Hornsby-Smith. Rt. Hn. Dame Patricia	Pink, R. Bonner	Wood, Rt. Hn. Rlcherd
Howe, Hn. Sir Geoffrey (Reigate)	Pounder, Rafton	Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher
Hunt, John	Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch	Woodnutt, Mark
Hutchison, Michael Clark	Price, David (Eastleigh)	Worsley, Marcus
Iremonger, T. L.	Prior, Rt. Hn. J. M. L.	Wylie, Rt. Hn. N. R.
Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)	Proudfoot, Wilfred	Younger, Hn. George
James, David	Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis
Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)	Quennell, Miss J. M.	TELLERS FOR THE AYES
Jennings, J. C. (Burton)	Raison, Timothy	Mr. Walter Clegg and
Jessel, Toby	Ramsden. Rt. Hn. James	Mr. Bernard Weatherill.

NOES
Abse, Leo	Hardy, Peter	Oakes, Gordon
Allaun, Frank (Sallord, E.)	Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)	Ogden, Eric
Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis)	Hattersley, Roy	O'Halloran, Michael
Ashley, Jack	Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis	O'Malley, Brian
Atkinson, Norman	Heffer, Eric S	Oram, Bert
Barnes, Michael	Hilton, W. S.	Orbach, Maurice
Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)	Hooson, Emlyn	Orme, Stanley
Barnett, Joel (Heywood and Royton)	Horam, John	Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, Sutton)
Baxter, William	Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas	Padley, Walter
Beaney, Alan	Howell, Denis (Small Heath)	Palmer, Arthur
Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood	Huckfield, Leslie	Parker, John (Dagenham)
Bennett, James (Glasgow, Bridgeton)	Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)	Parry, Robert (Liverpool, Exchange)
Bidwell, Sydney	Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.)	Pavitt, Laurie
Bishop, E. S.	Hughes, Roy (Newport)	Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred
Boardman, H. (Leigh)	Hunter, Adam	Perry, Ernest G.
Booth, Albert	Irvine, Rt. Hn. Sir Arthur (Edge Hill)	Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg.
Boyden, James (Bishop Auckland)	Janner, Greville	Price, William (Rugby)
Bradley, Tom	Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas	Probert, Arthur
Broughton, Sir Alfred	Jeger, Mrs. Lena	Reed, D. (Sedgefield)
Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)	Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)	Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)
Brown, Ronald (Shoreditch & F'bury)	Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (Stechford)	Rhodes, Geoffrey
Buchan, Norman	John, Brynmor	Richard, Ivor
Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)	Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)	Roberts, Albert (Normanton)
Campbell, I. (Dunbartonshire, W.)	Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)	Roberts, Rt.Hn.Goronwy (Caernarvon)
Cant, R. B.	Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.)	Robertson, John (Paisley)
Carmichael, Neil	Johnston, Russell (Inverness)	Roderick, Caerwyn E. (Brc'n&R'dnor)
Carter, Ray (Birmingh'm, Northfleld)	Jones, Barry (Flint, E.)	Rodgers, William (Stockton-on-Tees)
Carter-Jones, Lewis (Eccles)	Jones, Dan (Burnley)	Roper, John
Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara	Jones, Rt. Hn. Sir Elwyn(W.Ham, S.)	Rose, Paul B.
Clark, David (Colne Valley)	Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)	Ross. Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)
Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.)	Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, W.)	Rowlands, Ted
Cohen, Stanley	Judd, Frank	Sandelson, Neville
Coleman, Donald	Kaufman, Gerald	Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Lyne)
Concannon, J. D.	Kelley, Richard	Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)
Corbet, Mrs. Freda	Kerr, Russell	Short, Mrs. Renée (W'hampton, N. E.)
Cox, Thomas (Wandsworth, C.)	Kinnock, Neil	Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)
Crawshaw, Richard	Lambie, David	Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)
Cronin, John	Lamborn, Harry	Sillars, James
Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony	Latham, Arthur	Silverman, Julius
Crossman, Rt. Hn. Richard	Lawson, George	Skinner, Dennis
Cunningham, G. (Islington, S.W.)	Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick	Small, William
Davidson, Arthur	Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham, N.)	Spearing, Nigel
Davies, Denzil (Llanelly)	Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)	Spriggs, Leslie
Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)	Lipton, Marcus	Stallard, A. W.
Davies, Itor (Gower)	Lomas, Kenneth	Steel, David
Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.)	Loughlin, Charles	Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael (Fulham)
Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove)	Lyon, Alexander W. (York)	Stoddart, David (Swindon)
Deakins, Eric	Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)	Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John
Delargy, Hugh	Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson	Strang, Gavin
Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund	McBride, Neil	Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.
Dempsey, James	McCartney, Hugh	Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley
Doig, Peter	McGuire, Michael	Swain, Thomas
Douglas-Mann, Bruce	Mackenzie, Gregor	Thomas, Rt. Hn. George (Cardiff, W.)
	Mackie, John	Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)
Driberg, Tom	Maclennan, Robert	Tomney, Frank
Duffy, A. E. P.	McNamara, J. Kevin	Torney, Tom
Dunn, James A.	Mahon, Simon (Bootle)	Tuck, Raphael
Eadie, Alex	Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)
Edelman, Maurice	Marks, Kenneth	Wainwright, Edwin
Edwards, Robert (Bilston)	Marquand, David	Walden, Brian (B'm'ham, All Saints)
Edwards, William (Merioneth)	Marshall, Or. Edmund	Walker, Harold (Doncaster)
Ellis, Tom	Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy	Wallace, George
English, Michael	Mayhew, Christopher	Weitzman, David
Evans, Fred	Meacher, Michael	Wellbeloved, James
Faulds, Andrew	Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert	Wells, William (Walsall, N.)
Fisher, Mrs. Doris (B'ham, Ladywood)	Mendelson, John	White, James (Glasgow, Pollok)
Fitch, Alan (Wigan)	Mikardo, Ian	Whitehead, Phillip
Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)	Millan, Bruce	Whitlock, William
Ford, Ben	Miller, Dr. M. S.	Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)
Forrester, John	Milne, Edward	Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)
Fraser, John (Norwood)	Mitchell, R. C. (S'hampton, lichen)	Williams, W. T. (Warrington)
Freeson, Reginald	Molloy, William	Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)
Galpern, Sir Myer	Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)	Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)
Ginsburg, David (Dewsbury)	Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)	Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)
Grant, John D. (Islington, E.)	Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)
Griffiths, Eddie (Brlghtslde)	Morris, Rt. Hn. John (Aberavon)	TELLERS FOR THE NOES:
Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)	Mudd, David	Mr. James Hamilton and
Hannan, William (G'gow, Maryhill)	Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick	Mr. Tom Pendry.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Main Question, as amended, put:—

The House divided: Ayes 289, Noes 226.

Division No. 65.]	AYES	[7.30 p.m.
Adley, Robert	Foster, Sir John	MacArthur, Ian
Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)	Fowler, Norman	McCrindle, R. A.
Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)	Fox, Marcus	McLaren, Martin
Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian	Fry, Peter	Maclean, Sir Fitzroy
	Galbraith, Hn. T. G. D.	McMaster, Stanley
Archer, Jeffrey (Louth)	Gardner, Edward	Macmillan. Rt. Hn. Maurice (Farnham)
Astor, John		McNair-Wilson, Michael
Atkins, Humphrey	Gibson-Watt, David	McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)
Awdry, Daniel	Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)	Maddan, Martin
Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)	Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)	Madel, David
Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)	Glyn, Dr. Alan	Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest
Balniel, Rt. Hn. Lord	Godber, Rt. Hn J. B.	Marten, Neil
Batsford, Brian	Goodhart, Philip	Mather, Carol
Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton	Goodhew, Victor	Maude, Angus
Ball, Ronald	Gorst, John	Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald
Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)	Gower, Raymond	Mawby, Ray
Berry, Hn. Anthony	Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)	Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.
Biffen, John	Gray, Hamish	Meyer, Sir Anthony
Biggs-Davison, John	Green, Alan	Mills, Peter (Torrington)
Blaker, Peter	Grieve, Percy	Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)
Body, Richard	Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)	Miscampbell, Norman
Boscawen, Hn. Robert	Grylls, Michael	Mitchell, Lt. -Col. C. (Aberdeenshire, W)
Bossom, Sir Clive	Gummer, J. Selwyn	Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Bowden, Andrew	Gurden, Harold	Moate, Roger
Braine, Sir Bernard	Hall, Miss Joan (Keighley)	Money, Ernie
Bray, Ronald	Hall, John (Wycombe)	Monks, Mrs. Connie
Brewis, John	Hall-Davis, A. G. F.	Montgomery, Fergus
Brinton, Sir Tatton	Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)	More, Jasper
Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher	Hannam, John (Exeter)	Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.
Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)	Harrison, Brian (Maldon)	Morrison, Charles
Bruce-Gardyne, J.	Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)	Mudd, David
Bryan, Sir Paul	Haselhurst, Alan	Murton, Oscar
Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N&M)	Hastings, Stephen	Nabarro, Sir Gerald
Buck, Antony	Havers, Sir Michael	Neave, Airey
Bullus, Sir Eric	Hawkins, Paul	Nicholls, Sir Harmar
Burden, F. A.	Hayhoe, Barney	Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael
Butler, Adam (Bosworth)	Heath, Rt. Hn. Edward	Normanton, Tom
Campbell, Rt. Hn. G. (Moray & Nairn)	Heselline, Michael	Nott, John
Carlisle, Mark	Hicks, Robert	Onslow, Cranley
Cary, Sir Robert	Higgins, Terence L.	Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally
Channon, Paul	Hiley, Joseph	Orr, Capt. L. P. S.
Chapman, Sydney	Hill, S. James A.(Southampton, Test)	Osborn, John
Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher	Holland, Philip	Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.)
Churchill, W. S.	Holt, Miss Mary	Page, Rt. Hn. Graham (Crosby)
Clark, William (Surrey, E.)	Hordern, Peter	Parkinson, Cecil
Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)	Hornby, Richard	Peel, Sir John
Cockeram, Eric	Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hn. Dame Patricia	Percival, Ian
Cooke, Robert	Howe, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey	Peyton, Rt. Hn. John
Coombs, Derek	Hunt, John	Pink, R. Bonner
Cooper, A. E.	Hutchison, Michael Clark	Pounder, Rafton
Cordle, John	Iremonger, T. L.	Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch
Corfield, Rt. Hn. Sir Frederick	Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)	Price, David (Eastleigh)
Cormack, Patrick	James, David	Prior, Rt. Hn. J. M. L.
Costain, A. P.	Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)	Proudfoot, Wilfred
Critchley, Julian	Jennings, J. C. (Burton)	Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis
Crouch, David	Jessel, Toby	Quennell, Miss J. M.
Crowder, F. P.	Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)	Raison, Timothy
Davies, Rt. Hn. John (Knutsford)	Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)	Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James
d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry	Jopling, Michael	Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter
d'Avigdor-Goldsmid. Maj.-Gen. Jack	Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith	Redmond, Robert
Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.	Kaberry, Sir Donald	Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.)
Digby, Simon Wingfield	Kellett-Bowman, Mrs. Elaine	Rees, Peter (Dover)
Dixon, Piers	Kimball, Marcus	Rees-Davies, W. R.
Dodds-Parker, Sir Douglas	King, Tom (Bridgwater)	Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David
du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward	Kinsey, J. R.	Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon
Dykes, Hugh	Kltson, Timothy	Ridley, Hn. Nicholas
Eden, Rt. Hn. Sir John	Knight, Mrs. Jill	Ridsdale, Julian
Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)	Knox, David	Rippon, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey
Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carthalton)	Lambton, Lord	Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N.)
Elliott, R. W. (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, N.)	Lamont, Norman	Roberts, Wyn (Conway)
Emery, Peter	Lane, David	Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)
Eyre, Reginald	Langford-Holt, Sir John	Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)
Farr, John	Le Marchant, Spencer	Rost, Peter
Fenner, Mrs. Peggy	Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)	Russell, Sir Ronald
Finsberg, Geoffrey (Hampstead)	Lloyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Langstone)	St. John-Stevas, Norman
Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)	Longden, Sir Gilbert	Scott, Nicholas
Fletcher-Cooke, Charles	Loveridge, John	Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh & Whitby)
Fookes, Miss Janet	Luce, R. N.	Shelton, William (Clapham)
Fortescue, Tim	McAdden, Sir Stephen	Shersby, Michael
Simeons, Charles	Taylor, Robert (Croydon, N.W.)	Ward, Dame Irene
Sinclair, Sir George	Tebbit, Norman	Warren, Kenneth
Skeet, T. H. H.	Temple, John M.	Wells, John (Maidstone)
Smith, Dudley (W'wick & L'mingto	Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Mrs. Margaret	White, Roger (Gravesend)
Soref, Harold	Thomas, Rt. Hn. Peter (Hendon, S.)	Wiggin, Jerry
Speed, Keith	Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.]	Wilkinson, John
Spence, John	Tilney, John	Winterton, Nicholas
Sproat, Iain	Trafford, Dr. Anthony	Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick
Stainton, Keith	Trew, Peter	Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard
Stanbrook, Ivor	Tugendhat, Christopher	Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher
Stewart-Smith, Geoffrey (Belper)	Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin	Woodnutt, Mark
Stodart, Anthony (Edinburgh, W.)	van Straubenzee, W. R.	Worsley, Marcus
Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.	Vaughan, Dr. Gerard	Wylie, Rt. Hn. N. R.
Stokes, John	Vickers, Dame Joan	Younger, Hn. George
Stuttaford, Dr. Tom	Waddington, David
Sutcliffe, John	Walder, David (Clitheroe)	TELLERS FOR THE AYES:
Tapsell, Peter	Walker, Rt. Hn. Peter (Worcester)	Mr. Walter Clegg and
Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)	Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek	Mr. Bernard Weatherill.
Taylor, Edward M.(G'gow,Cathcart)	Wall, Patrick
Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)	Walters, Dennis
NOES
Abse, Leo	Faulds, Andrew	Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)
Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)	Fisher, Mrs. Doris(B'ham,Ladywood)	Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson
Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis)	Fitch, Alan (Wigan)	McBride, Neil
Ashley, Jack	Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)	McCartney, Hugh
Atkinson, Norman	Ford, Ben	McGuire, Michael
Barnes, Michael	Forrester, John	Mackenzie, Gregor
Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)	Fraser, John (Norwood)	Mackie, John
Barnett, Joel (Heywood and Royton	Freeson, Reginald	Maclennan, Robert
Baxter, William	Galpern, Sir Myer	McNamara, J. Kevin
Beaney, Alan	Ginsburg, David (Dewsbury)	Mahon, Simon (Bootle)
Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood	Grant, John D. (Islington, E.)	Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)
Bennett, James (Glasgow, Bridgeton)	Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)	Marks, Kenneth
Bidwell, Sydney	Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)	Marquand, David
Bishop, E. S.	Hannan, William (G'gow, Maryhill)	Marshall, Dr. Edmund
Boardman, H. (Leigh)	Hardy, Peter	Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy
Booth, Albert	Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)	Mayhew, Christopher
Boyden, James (Bishop Auckland)	Hattersley, Roy	Meacher, Michael
Bradley, Tom	Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis	Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert
Broughton, Sir Alfred	Heffer, Eric S.	Mendelson, John
Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Proven)	Hilton, W. S.	Mikardo, Ian
Brown, Ronald (Shoreditch & F'bury	Hooson, Emlyn	Millan, Bruce
Buchan, Norman	Horam, John	Miller, Dr. M. S.
Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)	Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas	Milne, Edward
Campbell, I. (Dunbartonshire, W.)	Howell, Denis (Small Heath)	Mitchell, R. C. (S'hampton, Itchen)
Cant, R. B.	Huckfield, Leslie	Molloy, William
Carmichael, Neil	Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)	Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)
Carter, Ray (Birmingh'm, Northfield)	Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.)	Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Carter-Jones, Lewis (Eccles)	Hughes, Roy (Newport)	Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)
Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara	Hunter, Adam	Morris, Rt. Hn. John (Aberavon)
Clark, David (Colne Valley)	Irvine, Rt. Hn. Sir Arthur (Edge Hill)	Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick
Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.)	Janner, Greville	Oakes, Gordon
Cohen, Stanley		Ogden, Eric
Coleman, Donald	Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas	O'Halloran, Michael
Concannon, J. D.	Jeger, Mrs. Lena	O'Malley, Brian
Corbet, Mrs. Freda	Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)	Oram, Bert
Cox, Thomas (Wandsworth, C.)	Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (Stechford)	Orbach, Maurice
Crawshaw, Richard	John, Brynmor	Orme, Stanley
Cronin, John	Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)	Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, Sutton)
Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony	Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)	Padley, Walter
Cunningham, G. (Islington, S.W.)	Johnson, Walter (Derby, s.)	Palmer, Arthur
Davidson, Arthur	Johnston, Russell (Inverness)	Parker, John (Dagenham)
Davies, Denzil (Llanelly)	Jones, Barry (Flint, E.)	Parry, Robert (Liverpool, Exchange)
Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)	Jones, Dan (Burnley)	Pavitt, Laurie
Davies, Ifor (Gower)	Jones, Rt. Hn. Sir Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)	Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred
Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.)	Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)	Perry, Ernest G.
Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove)	Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, W.)	Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg.
Deakins, Eric	Judd, Frank	Price, William (Rugby)
Delargy, Hugh	Kautman, Gerald	Probert, Arthur
Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund	Kelley, Richard	Reed, D. (Sedgefield)
Dempsey, James	Kerr, Russell	Rees, Merlyn (Leeds. S.)
Doig, Peter	Kinnock, Neil	Rhodes, Geoffrey
Douglas-Mann, Bruce	Lambie, David	Richard, Ivor
Driberg, Tom	Lamborn, Harry	Roberts, Albert (Normanton)
Duffy, A. E. P.	Latham, Arthur	Roberts, Rt. Hn. Goronwy (Caernarvon)
Dunn, James A.	Lawson, George	Robertson, John (Paisley)
Eadie, Alex	Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick	Roderick, Caerwyn E. (Brc'n&R'dnor)
Edelman, Maurice	Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham, N.)	Rodgers, William (Stockton-on-Tees)
Edwards, Robert (Bilston)	Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)	Roper, John
Edwards, William (Merioneth)	Lipton, Marcus	Rose, Paul B.
Ellis, Tom	Lomas, Kenneth	Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)
English, Michael	Loughlin, Charles	Rowlands, Ted
Evans, Fred	Lyon, Alexander W. (York)	Sandelson, Neville

Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Lyne)	Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John	Wellbeloved, James
Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)	Strang, Gavin	Wells, William (Walsall, N.)
Short, Mrs. Renée (W'hampton, N. E.)	Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.	White, James (Glasgow, Pollok)
Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)	Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley	Whitehead, Phillip
Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)	Swain, Thomas	Whitlock, William
Sillars, James	Thomas, Rt. Hn. George (Cardiff.W.)	Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)
Silverman, Julius	Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)	Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)
Skinner, Dennis	Tomney, Frank	Williams, W. T. (Warrington)
Small, William	Torney, Tom	Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)
Spearing, Nigel	Tuck, Raphael	Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)
Spriggs, Leslie	Wainwright, Edwin	Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)
Stallard, A. W.	Walden. Brian (B'm'ham, All Saints)
Steel, David	Walker, Harold (Doncaster)	TELLERS FOR THE NOES
Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael (Fulham)	Wallace, George	Mr. James Hamilton and
Stoddart, David (Swindon)	Weitzman, David	Mr. Tom Pendry.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Resolved, That this House, deeply concerned with the problem of unemployment in Scotland, welcomes the fall of 27,000 in the seasonally adjusted number of unemployed in Scotland since February 1972 and commends Her Majesty's Government for the success which their policies are achieving.