HC Deb 23 March 1978 vol 946 cc1744-6
Q4. Mr. Kilroy-Silk

asked the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for 23rd March.

Mr. Foot

I have been asked to reply.

I refer my hon. Friend to the reply which I gave earlier today to the hon. Member for Romford (Mr. Neubert).

Mr. Kilroy-Silk

Will my right hon. Friend accept that the employment and industrial problems on Merseyside are special and peculiar to that area? Does he agree that a much more sensitive approach is needed than that which is available under the current regional policy? Will he urge on the Prime Minister the need to take immediate action as an emergency measure and ask him to see a delegation of trade unionists and industrialists from Merseyside to discuss the reinvigoration and regeneration of industry in the region?

Mr. Foot

I acknowledge, as I did on Monday, that there are special aspects of unemployment in Merseyside to which the Government must give special attention. All the proposals that were made in that debate by my hon. Friends the Members for Ormskirk (Mr. Kilroy-Silk) and Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) will be discussed with the Prime Minister, and we shall see what action can be taken on those individual proposals.

I understand that my hon. Friend and Labour Members who represent Liverpool constituencies will be seeing my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry today. I am sure that they will put forward their case extremely strongly. Let us see how best we can move from there. I fully acknowledge the seriousness of the situation and the desirability that the Government should explore all possible ways in which we can help.

Mr. Peter Walker

In view of the fact that the constituency interests of the Prime Minister and the Lord President dictated the Labour Party's policy on steel before the election, will the right hon. Gentleman suggest to the Prime Minister that we should shortly have a debate on steel so that they may both take part and personally retract all the promises they made to steel workers at that time?

Mr. Foot

I shall be happy to take part in such a debate, as, indeed, I took part in some of the debates with the right hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Walker) in earlier years. I would be able to point out in such a debate, if it were held, that, if the right hon. Gentleman's policy on these matters had been followed, the whole of our steel-making capacity would have been closed down two or three years ago without a single new industry being provided. We must provide new industry on a much bigger basis. On many matters the right hon. Gentleman can instruct fellow Conservatives with great advantage, but before he makes any further boasts on this subject he should go back and look more carefully at what he said in those earlier years.