HC Deb 28 October 1975 vol 898 cc1282-4
14. Mr. Lane

asked the Secretary of State for Employment what further steps he is taking to help unemployed young people to find jobs.

Mr. Foot

My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced additional measures on 24th September, including a programme, of job creation and a recruitment subsidy. It is too early to say how exactly these measures are working or how they might be extended.

Mr. Lane

Will the Secretary of State keep in mind the exceptionally high level of unemployment among young people in some inner city areas? Cannot his Department do more to get employers involved in the task of bringing new hope and jobs to these areas and bringing real drive and urgency to the Government's urban policy?

Mr. Foot

One of the main purposes of the job creation scheme was to assist in urban areas. That was stated at the time the Government introduced the scheme. It is along these lines that we have given every encouragement we can—and quite a lot of money—to the Manpower Services Commission, which carries out the job. Many responses are coming forward in connection with the job creation scheme. We hope that these will have a direct effect in assisting young people. Our recruitment subsidy is also having some effect in that respect. The figures are improving. I am not in any way complacent about the matter, but I believe that our measures have helped significantly.

Mr. Loyden

Does my right hon. Friend agree that youth unemployment is inextricably bound up with the general unemployment situation, and that no solution will be found to the former without resolving the latter? Will he, therefore, in considering positive steps to take, also consider activating the construction industry, which has tremendously high levels of unemployment, especially since there is an urgent need for housing?

Mr. Foot

I entirely agree with the first part of my hon. Friend's remarks about the connection between youth unemployment and the general employment situation. One of the ways in which a solution might be found could be in fresh assistance to the construction industry. The Chancellor announced on 24th September that he would be making further proposals on that subject, and that these would be announced soon.

Mr. Costain

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that the best way to help unemployment would be to increase exports? Does he realise that we have failed to win exports because of our bad performance in connection with delivery dates? Will he use his great power of speech and persuasion to encourage the belief that if men strike they are acting as export saboteurs?

Mr. Foot

I agree that an increase in exports could assist greatly with the unemployment problem. I agree also that the better the delivery dates the better our exports. It is, however, wrong to attribute failures in delivery dates to industrial disputes. Industrial disputes may have contributed in certain instances, but the hon. Member is wrong in his broad inference that they are the sole problem. We have had considerable success in overcoming a number of industrial disputes with the establishment, for example, of the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service, which is already assisting the country. I had hoped that we would have a welcome from the Opposition for the service, which will help the country to overcome these disputes by trying to discover their true causes.

Mr. Ronald Atkins

Does my right hon. Friend agree that a large unemployed force in this country is itself a contribution to inflation, since it represents a large body of consumers who do not produce goods? Would it not therefore be better for the Government to abandon their deflationary measures, which create unemployment, and, instead, to release money for investment, especially for public works, to create jobs and so strengthen our industrial structure, so that it will be able to face the revival of trade and avoid the imbalance which has arisen in the past?

Mr. Foot

I agree that the Government should, by every means available to them, whether through the operation of an old instrument or through the new instruments which are being created—the NEB and the others—do everything in their power to try to create jobs. I do not believe, however, that the Government would succeed in that purpose if the inflation rate continued at the rate of some months ago. If that had happened, far from creating jobs it would have done away with jobs, which is why action was needed to deal with it.

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