School Leavers (Hansard, 12 July 1977)

§ 5. Mr. Hicks
asked the Secretary of State for Employment what further steps he is taking to increase employment and training opportunities for school leavers.

§ 6. Mr. Neubert
asked the Secretary of State for Employment what is his latest estimate of employment prospects for those leaving school this summer.

§ 12. Mr. Wyn Roberts
asked the Secretary of State for Employment what further plans he has to improve youth employment prospects.

§ 18. Mr. Fry
asked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make a further statement on youth unemployment.

§ The Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Albert Booth)
It is too early to make reliable predictions about the employment prospects for the 564,000 203 young people expected to leave school to seek employment this summer. In the normal course the placing of summer leavers spreads over several months and assessments of residual problems of unemployment cannot be made until about October. However, some encouragement can be drawn from the fact that those who left school at Easter appear to have fared better than expected. Of an estimated 69,000 seeking jobs, over 80 per cent. have entered employment or training.
To help those summer leavers who are unable to obtain jobs the various Government measures to provide employment, work experience or training have been expanded and extended. As I informed the House on 29th June, the Government have also accepted the report of the Manpower Services Commission, "Young People and Work". Immeditate steps to implement the recommendations are being taken and the new programme should be fully operational by September 1978.

§ Mr. Hicks
Will the right hon. Gentleman indicate how the proposals that he outlined on 29th June will be implemented in rural areas that suffer from both high youth unemployment and significant youth migration? In spite of the envisaged five-year time scale for this programme, can the Minister give any real hope to the youth of rural areas such as Cornwall, which has suffered an unemployment figure of 12 per cent. for the last 12 months?

§ Mr. Booth
I appreciate that there has been a problem in rural areas and I have studied the situation in the hon. Gentleman's constituency, where, due to the sparse spread of population, it has been difficult to operate some of our special youth employment measures. I welcome the fact that it has been possible to start work experience schemes and to provide about 90 places in that area.
These areas will be helped by the provision of travel allowances for those benefiting from schemes recommended by the Holland Report, and a wider range of schemes which can be adapted to the particular requirements of rural areas.

§ Mr. Neubert
Does the right hon. Gentleman appreciate the amount of employment provided for school leavers by the 204 retail trade, and will he therefore prevail upon the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection not to limit retailers' profit margins so stringently that they are obliged to reduce job opportunities for young people?

§ Mr. Booth
I appreciate that the retail trade provides a number of jobs for young people, but the recent changes in the prices policy have allowed for proper profit margins in that area. It is possible for work experience schemes to give particular help to firms that are prepared to assist, in this period of difficulty, those young people who are unemployed.

§ Mr. Wyn Roberts
Is the Secretary of State aware that only 348 school leavers were unemployed in Wales in July 1973, compared with 11,577 in July 1976? Is he aware that that represents an increase of about 3,000 per cent.? Is it not abundantly clear, therefore, that Government measures are totally inadequate?

§ Mr. Booth
In the years that the hon. Gentleman compared there were different school-leaving dates, so he is not comparing like with like. If he wants to compare dates for the purpose of testing the effectiveness of the Government's measures I suggest that he looks at the number of unemployed school leavers last July or August, compared with the situation in March of this year. If he does so, he will see that there has been a substantial drop.

§ Mr. Roy Hughes
I do not wish to be as dramatic as the hon. Member for Conway (Mr. Roberts), but does my right hon. Friend appreciate that last month there were 896 more unemployed in Gwent, which is against the national trend and before school leavers come on to the labour market? As Newport provides so many job opportunities for the rest of Gwent, will my right hon. Friend urge the Secretary of State for Industry to make it a development area?

§ Mr. Booth
I assure my hon. Friend that I work in close co-operation with Ministers of Industry to get the most effective combination of employment and industrial measures. I shall look particularly at the problems of Gwent to which he has referred.

§ Mr. Gordon Wilson
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the employment 205 situation in Scotland generally is reaching a critical stage? Does he agree that the suggested time scale of September 1978 for the new scheme is quite insufficient to match the urgency of the situation? Is he aware that more and more young people in Scotland are coming to the conclusion that because of the failure of the existing Government to do anything for them in their own country, the only solution for them is independence and a Scottish Government who will look after their interests?

§ Mr. Booth
I appreciate that in certain areas of Scotland there is a special problem for young peole who are seeking work. I cannot agree that the time scale that I have set for the special measures to be introduced is unreasonable. It is bringing about an enormous increase in the number of places. We arc attempting to cater for over 300,000 a year. It would be impracticable to expand from our present level of places to that number in a shorter time and still achieve the quality of training and work experience that the House rightly expects the Department to provide for young people.

§ Mr. Skinner
Is not the real truth of the matter that the Opposition in 1975, after we had had the "phoney" referendum and they were sure that that was in the bag, declared that the Government should control the money supply? Is it not the case that they then said that they should cut public expenditure by about £5,000 million? Is it not a fact that the Labour Government trailed behind the Tory proposals and then carried them out in bits and pieces, the result being that the hurnbugs and hypocrites on the Opposition Benches are now complaining about—

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that it is stated in "Erskine May" that moderation is the characteristic of parliamentary language.

§ Mr. Skinner
I was being moderate, Mr. Speaker, for me.

§ Mr. Speaker
I do not disagree with the hon. Gentleman. He was being moderate for him, but I like language to be moderate by parliamentary standards.

§ Mr. Skinner
Will my right hon. Friend turn his attention to the fact that while 206 one of the proposals, namely, the temporary employment subsidy, is being used by the Government to try to offset unemployment, according to The Sunday Times there has been abuse by employers, including Arnold Weinstock, who have been making applications for the subsidy when no jobs are being declared redundant?

§ Mr. Booth
Whether or not my hon. Friend's language was moderate by parliamentary standards, I agree with the position of the Opposition that he described, which coincides with my own impression. Whether events were placed in that order by coincidence or design is a matter of opinion. I should be loath to concede that abuse of the temporary employment subsidy represents other than a very small number of untypical cases. If there are any known cases of abuse, they will be pursued and eliminated by officers in my Department. If allegations of abuse were to lead to a substantial curtailment of the temporary employment programme, or even a slowing down of the processing of applications, I believe that that would militate against the objectives that I know I share with my hon. Friend.

§ Mr. Prior
Are not the epithets of the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) more suitably applied to the Government, who fought and won an election on the slogan "Back to work with Labour" and who have seen unemployment rise from 600,000 to 1½ million since then?

§ Mr. Booth
The suggestions of my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) about the positions taken by the Opposition are accurate. The calls for substantial cuts in public expenditure came from the Opposition two years in advance of any application to the International Monetary Fund. Even taking into account the considerable borrowing from the IMF, we have maintained public expenditure programmes in a way that has had proper regard for the employment implications.