TUC (Hansard, 21 February 1978)

§ Q2. Mr. Rifkind
asked the Prime Minister when he last met the General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress.

§ The Prime Minister
I met representatives of the TUC, including the General Secretary, when I took the chair at a meeting of NEDC on 1st February.

§ Mr. Rifkind
Does the Prime Minister still endorse the recipe for political success that he once gave to Lord Wigg—namely, to wait until the trade unions decide their line and then follow it? Has the Prime Minister said to Mr. Moss Evans, who yesterday gave his support to collective bargaining, that in his view we have free collective bargaining at present?

§ The Prime Minister
I do not think that the trade unions believe that I always and universally follow their view. I believe that the partnership between the trade union movement and the Government of the day in this complex industrial society is the best way to govern Britain. That has been proved by results in the last four years.

§ Mr. Heffer
Does the Prime Minister recall that he also met the General Secretary of the TUC this morning? Would he like to say something about unemployment? Is it not clear that, although we can welcome the reductions that are taking place, we need further measures to help the construction industry and a boost in the economy really to begin to bring down the unemployment figures?

§ The Prime Minister
There was an improvement in the employment figures today. It was a welcome improvement of 39,000. There was also an increase in the number of vacancies. However, in this and in such matters as the balance of payments I do not think that we should 1209 make too much of one month's figures. There has been an improvement in the unemployment figures in the last four and possibly five months. The construction industry has suffered, but a substantial boost has been given to it by increased financial assistance. Apart from that, I think that we had better await the Budget on 11th April.

§ Mrs. Thatcher
Can the Prime Minister account for the fact that unemployment is still worse here than in any of the major industrial competitor countries?

§ The Prime Minister
That is not, of course, totally true. I have looked at the situation. I could give exceptions. What is true is that the United Kingdom unemployment since the war—I was looking at these figures this morning—has been consistently higher than that of the Federal Republic of Germany or of France, for deep-seated reasons which we have discussed in the House. It is now our task to improve that situation. If the right hon. Lady looks over the range of years at the worsening that has taken place since 1973, she will find that the United Kingdom position has in no sense become relatively worse. It has not become relatively worse than that of our major competitors.

§ Mrs. Thatcher
When one calculates these figures on a comparable basis—they are given in that way in OECD figures and in Hansard—unemployment is worse here than in the United States, France, West Germany and Italy. Surely that is a great reflection on the Government, but the Prime Minister seems to have no proposals to put it right.

§ The Prime Minister
The right hon. Lady is not right again. I have gone into the figures with some considerable care. What she overlooks are the very great manpower measures which have been undertaken by the Government and which have saved the jobs of several hundred thousand people. It is a record of which no other country can boast.
On the general situation, the Leader of the Opposition agreed that inflation was the biggest single evil to overcome. That was in the Conservatives' last manifesto. We believe that that is so. We are now overcoming it. It is now in single figures and will continue in single figures for a long time to come. That 1210 will enable us to build a healthy economy again.
I do not disguise the present situation. The people want to know the truth. They know that in a world recession, with nearly 17 million people out of work in the OECD countries, the situation will become worse this year unless there is a faster rate of growth in the Western industrialised countries. We depend upon that rate of growth for our exports to increase and for jobs to be found.

§ Mrs. Thatcher
The Prime Minister still avoids the point. Under identical world circumstances, our competitors have done better than this Government. How does the Prime Minister account for that?

§ The Prime Minister
Under identical circumstances, no other Government were left with a money supply that was increasing at a rate of 28 per cent. The right hon. Lady should be ashamed of having been a member of a Government which allowed inflation to roar away in the manner that it did.
We have now repaired the damage that the right hon. Lady did. We shall go on repairing it. We shall ensure that the rate of inflation does not in any way approach what it was when the Conservatives left office. [HON. MEMBERS: "8.4 per cent. 8.4 per cent."] There used to be a case for individual heckling, but the mindless chant has not only destroyed public meetings but it tends to make it impossible to reply to questions. I shall continue for a moment. I want to make it clear that the inflation rate is going down lower than it was when the Conservatives were in office. It will remain that way. Exports are increasing faster than when the Conservatives were in office. We are now rebuilding the financial stability of the country and trying to get it back on course. The Conservatives left us in sheer despair in 1973.