Northern Ireland (Economic Situation)

HC Deb 18 March 1981 vol 1 cc290-335

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Mather.]

3.39 pm

Mr. J. D. Concannon (Mansfield)

Today we are engaging in what can only be described as a unique debate, for this is the first time that anyone can recall the official Opposition using up their own debating time to discuss the Northern Ireland economy. We have made this unprecedented move as an expression of our deep concern about the exceptional economic crisis that prevails in the Province today, and because all the figures on unemployment, redundancies, factory closures and social deprivation over the past 19 months demonstrate incontrovertibly that Government policies are having a most adverse effect on the Northern Ireland economy.

We have a cut-off point of near 7 o'clock for this debate. I should like the co-operation of right hon. and hon. Members, because when my colleagues decided to allow it I promised them that I would try to end it by 7 o'clock, for there is other important business before the House. I hope that we shall have the co-operation of all right hon. and hon. Members on this matter.

I do not intend to retrace the arguments and points put forward when I last spoke to the House on these matters, on 9 March in the debate on the Appropriation order, as reported at col. 680. However, at this point a brief summary of the unemployment situation in Northern Ireland is essential to put this debate in context.

The economic future of Northern Ireland looks ominous, to say the very least. Government expenditure plans for the next two years, published last week, clearly state that unemployment is expected to rise in the Province over that period. If we include school leavers. adult students and the temporarily stopped, the Government not only predict but are budgeting for an unemployment level of 128,000 people by 1982. That is almost 25 per cent. of the adult working population.

I remind those hon. Members who are used to speaking in millions that 25 per cent. unemployed in the rest of Great Britain would mean over 5 million people out of work—a sobering thought for even the strongest supporter of the Prime Minister's policies.

The main stimulus for this debate has been the rising tide of unemployment in Northern Ireland over the past 12 to 15 months. During that period, month by month new records have been set. The rate of increase has leapfrogged. The percentage of the work force out of work at the last count was 17.3. This is now the highest regional total in the United Kingdom. Again, 17.3 per cent. of a work force of 100,000 in Northern Ireland represents on the mainland of Great Britain an unemployment level of over 4 million. That 17.3 per cent. hides pockets in small towns in Northern Ireland with unemployment rates of between 30 per cent. and 40 per cent.

One-fifth of the total number of unemployed persons in Northern Ireland are under the age of 20. Over 6,000 school leavers have never yet had a job. A further 6,000 people are temporarily out of the dole queues through participating in the youth opportunities programme.

The situation in Northern Ireland has never been so serious. We have initiated this debate to ask the Government exactly what they intend to do to alleviate the intolerable burden that they have placed on the people of the Province.

Last week's Budget offered no hope for the people of Northern Ireland. It will only drag Northern Ireland further into the deep pit of recession. The low state of the economy there will mean that the many deflationary tendencies in that ill-considered Financial Statement will act with full force. More factories will close; more jobs will be lost for good; and the entire Province will become a permanent economic backwater, with all the grave consequences that are bound to follow from such a situation.

Before I outline our specific objections to the operation of the Govenment's economic policies in Northern Ireland I should say something about the nature of the economic structure and industrial base of the Province. If we go back to the late 'fifties or, indeed, to the period immediately after the Second World War, we find that it is quite clear from the figures of people in employment that the traditional pillars of the Northern Ireland economy have been long in decline. The shipbuilding, textile and linen industries within the manufacturing sector have consistently employed fewer and fewer people each year. The same is true of the agriculture sector. Whilst that is still by far the biggest factor in the economics of Northern Ireland it is clear that that sector, too, has been in decline.

The average rate of unemployment in the Province has always exceeded that for the rest of the United Kingdom. We fully recognise that even when unemployment was relatively low on the mainland the percentage for Northern Ireland was sometimes one-third as high again, and even, on occasion, double what it was over here. For well over half a century Northern Ireland has displayed all the characteristics of a less prosperous, peripheral economic region. Average weekly earnings and labour force activity rates have, on the whole, been lower, whereas net emigration and infant mortality rates have been higher than those elsewhere in the United Kingdom.

The prevalence of low incomes and dependence on supplementary benefits is substantially higher in Northern Ireland than it is in other United Kingdom regions. A further important dimension of economic and social life in the Province is the havoc and destruction wrought by almost 12 years of civil unrest. We recognise that this has meant that much-needed resources have had to be diverted to areas that do not contribute directly to economic and social developments.

In addition to these factors, the Northern Ireland economy is particularly susceptible to volatile international markets, not least to the state of the oil market—for the Province is largely dependent on imported oil for electricity generation.

I have made those observations because I want the Government to be absolutely clear about the fact that we acknowledge that there are no easy solutions to the Province's economic problems. We recognise now, as we did when in Government, that geographical dependence on declining industries has made it especially difficult to deal with the seemingly intractable problems of the Northern Irish economy.

The Opposition understand the difficulties faced by the Government. Consequently, we find the application of present Government policies to the Province difficult to explain and impossible to defend. The harsh evidence of the unemployment figures and the factory closures is quite enough to tell us that the Government's economic policies are irrelevant to the needs of Northern Ireland. We have repeatedly stressed this over the past 19 months, but to no avail. That is why, today, we challenge the Government on the question of the complete lack of a logical and consistent regional policy designed to tackle the dire needs of people of the Province.

The failure of monetarism and public spending cuts in Northern Ireland demonstrates the need for a particular economic strategy in the Province, but no such response has been forthcoming from the Government. Instead, we have had to listen to repeated statements by Ministers that Northern Ireland must share the burden of cuts with the rest of the United Kingdom. But the plain fact is that Northern Ireland's problems are unique within the United Kingdom in their intensity and severity.

The Province has special needs and special problems, most of which I have just outlined. To date, there is scant evidence that the Government have done anything to recognise these special needs in a practical sense. Conservative Members may shake their heads at that statement. They will tell me of the millions of pounds that have been made available for industrial regeneration, in the form of grants and loans. My answer to that is that the list of new factories—if, indeed, one could call it a list—is completely overshadowed by the lengthy catalogue of factory closures and redundancies in the Province.

Furthermore, I point out to those hon. Members who are unfamiliar with financing in Northern Ireland, that the vast majority of sums devoted to industrial help in the Province have been directly hived off from other planned public spending, particularly on transport, education, health, housing and the environment.

I should not be surprised if Ministers also invoke the age-old argument that Northern Ireland is already in a privileged position, since public spending there is 35 per cent. above what it is per head in the rest of the United Kingdom. To me, that has always been a very dubious argument, which I think the Northern Ireland Economic Council, in its report of January 1981, has slammed once and for all. That report stated that when all the special factors were taken into account the difference between per capita public spending in Northern Ireland and such spending in the rest of the United Kingdom was minimal. It concluded by saying: The present level of public expenditure in Northern Ireland if fully justified to meet immediate needs. Further resources are required to help overcome our severe economic difficulties and allow the Province to catch up with social and economic conditions in Great Britain. Northern Ireland needs levels of public expenditure to be maintained simply in order to stand still—but to stand still where?—20 years behind the rest of the United Kingdom in housing and welfare. It was not until 1975 that the line of public spending in Northern Ireland finally crossed over that of one of the regions, which was Scotland. It equalled it in 1975 and finally went over in 1976.

We must make up the leeway in Northern Ireland. Therefore, any talk about spending per head of population being higher now should be offset against the time when not enough public expenditure was being incurred in Northern Ireland. One has only to consider the infrastructure of that region to see what I mean by that.

I am sure that the Secretary of State will claim that the Prime Minister's recent announcement of help for the energy sector in Northern Ireland is evidence that the Government care about the burden borne by the people there. However, we have yet to hear whether domestic as well as industrial comsumers are to benefit. More importantly, we have still to learn the source of that financial panacea. If the money is to be taken from other sectors of the Northern Ireland budget there will be no benefit.

In urging the Secretary of State to go to the Cabinet and fight for more funds because Northern Ireland is a special case, I remind him, first, that in 1977 the previous Government allotted an additional £100 million to Northern Ireland for a five-year programme of reducing industrial and commercial tariffs by 30 per cent. That explains why the commercial tariff is currently 7 per cent. above the rest of Great Britain. It also explains why the Prime Minister recently made her announcement, because the five-year programme is almost complete.

Secondly, in 1977 we made new money available. It is the only rational way of coping with the expensive disparity in energy costs, which can be such a heavy burden on industrialists and domestic consumers. In the review by the Department of Finance of the economic and social progress in Northern Ireland in April 1979, a passage on page 12 states that: £26.3 million of the accrued deficits on revenue account of the Northern Ireland Electricity Service was written off and its capital indebtedness to the Government Loans Fund reduced by £250 million. A further sum of up to £100 million has been made available during the 5 years from 1977–78 to 1981–82 which has made it possible to reduce industrial and commercial tariffs by approximately 30 per cent.". As the money that we made available is now due to end, the Prime Minister and the Government had to decide whether to continue our policy and to subsidise the Northern Ireland electricity service. If not, the gap would have widened quickly. The decision had nothing to do with the economy of Northern Ireland, although it is welcome. The decision had to be taken now because the tranche of money that we allowed for the five-year period is due to end.

In the Appropriation order debate last Monday I gave specific details of factory closures and redundancies to demonstrate the failure of the Government to bring anything other than industrial stagnation to Northern Ireland. I shall not waste the time of the House by repeating those figures and names, which are shown in the Official Report.

The effect of the Government's patent failure to develop a coherent economic approach to Northern Ireland will be further compounded by the budgetary measures announce last week for the whole of the United Kingdom. From the bastion of Tory support has come the most severe criticism. The CBI of Northern Ireland said of the Budget: The proposals will probably result in higher unemployment because it is a deflationary Budget. Industry was already having to operate on a very tight budget and the higher transport costs could easily push them over the edge. It was also forcefully argued that the whole deflationary effect of the Budget would probably offset the benefits of lower interest charges for most of industry. I hope that the words of the CBI will be taken to heart by the Secretary of State and his Cabinet colleagues and that he will address his remarks to them. All the evidence suggests that industrial stagnation and unemployment are the inevitable consequences of monetarism and a non-existent economic strategy for Northern Ireland.

On a number of occasions Ministers have said that they were giving priority to the competitiveness of industry in Northern Ireland. That is a difficult position to reconcile with the large number of factory closures and redundancies. I suggest that such moneys as are currently directed to industry are being used to keep alive a vestige of economic activity against all the adverse market forces that the Government have created, such as high interest rates, adverse exchange rates and high national insurance surcharges, not to mention high transport costs.

It is not far from the truth to say that the Government are recklessly squandering all the economic achievements, not only of the previous Administration but of many of their predecessors. It has been difficult for some of us to watch the disappearance in two years of what has been painfully built up in Northern Ireland over the last 20 years.

I ask the Secretary of State to refer in his speech to the firms that are now in trouble in terms of cash flow and job prospects. On this occasion I shall not refer to the firms that have been closed, but I want to mention four others. There is the strange case of Euroweld. British Enkalon is a huge industrial firm in an area of Northern Ireland. The order books of Short Brothers are crammed to capacity, but it is suffering a lack of cash flow, which I understand is usual these days. If the right hon. Gentleman could scotch those rumours, that would be fair enough for me. Will he also refer to Courtaulds Campsi? The positons of those four firms are fresh in my mind and are connected with the economy of Northern Ireland. If any of them close or run into difficulties there will be a major jump in the unemployment rate in Northern Ireland.

I am sure that the Secretary of State will brandish a copy of the report published yesterday by PA International—the first of its quarterly surveys of business prospects. No doubt he will point to the 24 per cent. overall increase in investment in Northern Ireland industry over the last year. However, we must look behind that figure to find the truth. The truth is that 45 per cent. of all firms in the survey expect to be employing fewer people in a year's time.

About 55 per cent. expect to invest less over the next 12 months. The problem with such surveys is that one large firm that carries out major re-equipment in one year in Northern Ireland can make nonsense of the figures. One only has to consider Dupont. I was pleased to read on the tapes before the debate about what is happening in that firm. If that is what happens when the Opposition have a debate on the economic affairs in Northern Ireland., I ask my Leader to give me one a week to see what would happen on a weekly basis. We used that trick ourselves. The survey also states that overall results show that employment in existing firms may fall by 10 per cent. in the corning year. So much for additional investment. That will bring no new jobs for the people of Northern Ireland.

The only hope for the people in Northern Ireland is to be rid of the Government. However, failing that, in the short term I consider it essential that the Opposition should put to the House and to the Northern Ireland Ministers present their alternative approach to the Northern Ireland economy.

The Province is a special case. On individual occasions Northern Ireland Ministers have recognised many of the disadvantages faced by the people there. The last Administration also took note of those problems in a practical sense. It is our overriding concern that the people in that region should receive fair treatment. They are patently not getting that at the moment. That is why we strongly urge the Government to review the operation of their policies in Northern Ireland and to adopt with the utmost urgency a regional strategy designed to keep jobs and to attract foreign investment. We further call on the Government to revise the proposed public expenditure cuts for Northern Ireland over the next two years and to direct spending to create jobs in Northern Ireland, most notably in the construction industry.

Currently, 50 per cent. of the construction industry work force in Northern Ireland is on the dole, and that at a time when housing unfitness is three times the national average and yet more houses are falling into disrepair. It is incomprehensible that the Government are unwilling to match a willing work force with the large amount of work that needs to be done.

I ask the Government with all the persuasive powers at my command to look again at the recommendations of the 1976 Quigley report. The Belfast HMSO tells me that it is out of print, but if the Minister wishes to read it I can lend him my copy. I beg the Government to take careful note, too, of the recent Coopers and Lybrand report on the Northern Ireland economy. Both reports argue convincingly for coherent regional strategy, with direct State involvement in saving and creating jobs.

The Quigley report considered that the only hope for the Province, with its special problems, lay in maintaining the level of public expenditure with the State having a strong role, leading, subsidising and directly involving itself in industry. I was fortunate to have Dr. Quigley as a permanent secretary at the Department of Commerce to further endorse that approach. My right hon. Friends the Members for Salford, West (Mr. Orme), for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) and for Barnsley (Mr. Mason) and I were already convinced that the strategy provided a positive outlook for the Northern Ireland economy. It worked for three years under a Labour Administration. We were able to contain rising unemployment, to encourage foreign investors to set up factories and to attract investment to black spots by offering special incentives to blue chip—high quality and high stability—firms. Newry, Strabane and West Belfast all benefited.

Of course, we hear only of the successes. Much heartache, hard work and planning were put into projects that fell at the last hurdle. We thought on many occasions that we had sold Northern Ireland industrially, with its enhanced investment package, only to fail with pen poised over paper.

Terrorist activity was not the only deterrent to potential investors, many of whom had factories in other violent areas of the world. However, a number were deterred by political activities, such as the general strike in 1974. We have only to consider the employment figures after the strike to realise the damage done. I say to the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) that we had the same difficulty in 1977. For nigh on five weeks I was prevented from travelling and contacting people throughout the world to the benefit of Northern Ireland, as I had to deal with the situation. Such activities do not help Northern Ireland's economy.

I again sympathise with the Secretary of State. Ministers and officials in the Northern Ireland Office must be suffering from similar political activities. I should be more understanding and sympathetic to the hon. Member for Antrim, North had he led 500 men up the hill brandishing oxy-acetylene torches, spanners and shovels, demanding work, instead of brandishing pieces of paper. That would have done more good.

I thank the President of the United States and the Senators involved for their recent messages. I hope that they can follow them up by telling Irish Americans who want to help not to send money but to use their tremendous influence in the board rooms to see that Northern Ireland is considered when firms are looking abroad for factory sites. That is the best way that they can help. Money only ends up in dubious hands.

The evidence of how the Labour Administration were succeeding lies in the report of 1979, "Economic and social progress in Northern Ireland", which showed that we had made a sustained effort to exploit all available opportunities. We were beginning to advance in our objectives of economic growth, high employment and social progress. We recognised that manpower was the Province's main natural resource. It has hardly any coal, oil, gas or other basic minerals. We fully accepted that Northern Ireland was dependent on public expenditure to stimulate capital investment and to create and maintain employment. That is why we were able to make some headway. If the Government would only acknowledge those truths they could begin to tackle the onerous problems.

I shall not detain the House for much longer by going over past ground. I simply state that there is an alternative to the Government's appalling acceptance, in their expenditure plans for Northern Ireland, that unemployment will continue to rise significantly over the next two years. One can take no comfort from such brutal indifference. I should not have allowed such a statement to be made when I was a Minister. At paragraph 14, on page 161 of the Government's expenditure plans, they state: For the purpose of social security expenditure projections it has been assumed that unemployment in Northern Ireland will grow at the same rate as assumed for Great Britain … and that the average figures of unemployed (excluding school-leavers) would be 80,000 in 1980–81; 108,000 in 1981–82; and 116,000 in subsequent years. The comparable assumptions for school-leavers, adult students and temporarily stopped are 10,800 in 1980–81 and 12,200 in 1981–82 and subsequent years. Instead of trying to tackle the problem the Government are budgeting for an increase in unemployment over the Great Britain figure of 4 million to a figure that would equate, for Northern Ireland, to over 5 million, as I have said. I never believed that unemployment in my constituency would reach 10 per cent. I did not believe that any Government would be incompetent enough to produce such figures. The figures make me shudder. I cannot imagine what would happen in my constituency if unemployment rose to 25 per cent.

The Opposition do not accept that there is no other option for Northern Ireland. The 100,000 unemployed, the 24,000 on short-time working, and the 6,149 school-leavers who have never had a job would agree. We challenge the Government to produce a positive strategy for Northern Ireland's economy that will protect jobs, save valuable plant and factories and provide incentives for foreign investors. Most important of all, they should use the tool of public expenditure generally to create jobs.

There is still time to save the Northern Ireland economy—but time is running short. That is why we ask the Secretary of State to explain his position and to tell us why he continues to apply patently inadequate economic measures to the greater detriment of all in Northern Ireland. There is an alternative to industrial stagnation. It is outlined in the Quigley and Coopers and Lybrand reports. Above all, it is there for posterity, in the record of our Administration, which brought some comfort to the people of Northern Ireland.

4.8 pm

The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Humphrey Atkins)

I am glad of the opportunity to debate the economic affairs of Northern Ireland. The right hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. Concannon) said that this was a unique occasion. It is certainly welcome. Too often the House directs its attention only to matters connected with security, terrorism, violence or political division in the Province. Seldom do we have the opportunity to discuss matters that closely affect people in Northern Ireland.

In debates about the political future in Northern Ireland it is necessary to start by restating the fact that Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom and will remain so unless a majority of people in Northern Ireland decide otherwise. It seems to me just as necessary to do that in an economic debate because, with all its special and distinctive problems—the right hon. Gentleman referred to one or two—the main factors influencing the economic health of Northern Ireland are just the same as those in the rest of the United Kingdom.

The right hon. Gentleman implied, predictably, that the major thing that was wrong was the Government's policy. He knows perfectly well that Northern Ireland has its own problems. He mentioned some of them. One he left out. He knows that we are in the middle of a world recession, and that any Government would have been confronted with the same very difficult problems as those that we face today. The right hon. Gentleman's argument was very simple, and very predictable. It was to the effect that the Government's policies, far from tending to strengthen the Northern Ireland economy, are weakening it. He made a plea for a return, in this part of the United Kingdom at any rate, to the illusion that there is no situation that cannot be made better by ever-increasing handouts of taxpayers' money. We have heard those arguments so often from the Opposition that it was no surprise to hear them again today.

In response to what the right hon. Gentleman said, I wish to do two things. First, I wish to show that the central thrust of Government economic policy, far from being detrimental to the long-term interests of Northern Ireland, is vital to any soundly based revival there or anywhere else. Secondly, I wish to show that, consistent with this policy, we have nevertheless been able to introduce a series of distinctive initiatives, well directed to the specific problems of the Province.

If the policies of the right hon. Gentleman's party were followed, inflation would not be brought down and taxation would be very much higher. Great Britain is a major market for the products of Northern Ireland, and it is inevitably also a major source of new industrial investment. A national economy weakened by inflation and crippled by increased taxation would do nothing for the marketing prospects of Northern Ireland firms, and the likelihood that there would be successful companies in Great Britain, ready to expand and looking to Northern Ireland for new productive capacity, would disappear. Nor would Northern Ireland firms themselves be exempt from the consequences, in rates of taxation and inflation, of following the policies of the Labour Party. By printing and spending more and more money, we would be perpetuating a fiction that the nation can afford a steadily improving life style within a declining performance. The people of Northern Ireland are nothing if not realists. They know that it is just as much in their interests as in anybody else's that the trend towards a disastrous decline should be reversed, even if some of the measures are far from comfortable.

Inevitably, the single indicator that attracts the most notice, and to which the the right hon. Gentleman referred at some length, is that which contains the unemployment figures. For many years, under Governments of whatever complexion, unemployment in Northern Ireland, sadly, has been higher than in any other region of the United Kingdom. Moreover, it has risen or fallen broadly in line with movements elsewhere. That is what it is doing today, and that explains why the paper to which the right hon. Gentleman referred makes the same assumptions for budgeting purposes on the social security budget as are made for the rest of the United Kingdom. It has, of course, led to the deeply distressing figure, at the last count, of 99,849 people being unemployed. That figure can give nobody any pleasure. It is evidence of a waste of human resources and of a great deal of social unhappiness. 'The consequences for the future of Northern Ireland in those spheres, and possibly in the security sphere as well, worry us all very much indeed.

We take the view that it is the Government's business to seek to promote and to protect as much employment as possible. But this must be done within the context of a viable economy. We know that a fiction of "economic activity" can be produced by making work. The trouble with jobs of that kind is that they have no permanence. Unless money is continually put into them, year after year, they disappear, and the money which could have been used to help establish new and profitable activities disappears as well.

As I have said, the people of Northern Ireland are realists. They recognise that Northern Ireland needs sound and lasting jobs, not illusory and temporary ones. The right hon. Gentleman today, and in the earlier debate on the Appropriation order, gave a long list of firms in Northern Ireland which have closed down or experienced heavy redundancies. He asked particularly about four firms which have not closed down but which he fears may be in difficulty.

I must first reassure the right hon. Gentleman about Short Brothers. That firm has orders which will keep it going very well for at least two years and, one hopes, for longer. Like other firms, it sometimes has problems with cash, but we are looking into that. The firm's productive record is improving and its order book is good. We all hope very much that it will not go on costing the taxpayer money indefinitely.

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned Enkalon and Courtaulds. Those firms are in difficulties, but we are in close touch with them and I hope that, through the system of grants and investment incentives of all kinds, we shall be able to help them, if not to maintain their full level of employment at least to continue in operation and, one hopes, to build up in the future.

The right hon. Gentleman also mentioned Euroweld. I shall not spend much time on the subject of that firm, as it is in the hands of the receivers. The receivers are now negotiating for, one hopes, a purchase. I think that it would be wiser if I left the matter there. We all hope that that firm, which has recently re-equipped itself, will be able to continue making its products and selling them abroad.

What the Government are seeking to do, and must seek to do, is to create conditions in Northern Ireland in which the right sort of firm, with the right sort of products and with the right attitude to manufacturing and marketing, will be able to grow without carrying on its back a terrible incubus of Government taxation and regulation. We are directing our efforts towards helping Northern Ireland firms to get those things right.

I shall describe to the House a few of the things that we are doing, starting at the smaller end of the scale. Under the Northern Ireland market research grant scheme, which we introduced in September 1979, more than 100 firms have been assisted to carry out market surveys in 50 countries. The products of 170 Northern Ireland companies have been introduced at special trade promotions. During the past six weeks, the department of commerce has sponsored Northern Ireland stands at five major industrial trade exhibitions.

On the whole, these things benefit smaller businesses. That is right, because we recognise that special benefits flow from the promotion of small businesses, both through initial development and through expansion. Many of them have the inestimable benefit of deep local roots, and they provide new jobs at a comparatively low cost in terms of public support. In this sphere, I must mention the activities of the Local Enterprise Development Unit—LEDU—which has been doing a remarkable job and to which I pay tribute. In 1980 the unit promoted 1,160 jobs, almost entirely in small manufacturing businesses. I am happy to think, despite what the right hon. Gentleman said, that the package of taxation and other measures for the support of small businesses announced in his Budget by my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be particularly welcome in, and relevant to, Northern Ireland.

We also attract, and wish to attract, investment from larger companies. The big overseas investment can bring benefits to the local and national economy which are of enormous value. In that context, I am glad to be able to confirm what the right hon. Gentleman mentioned and other hon. Members may have seen on the tapes, namely that the Dupont Corporation is to introduce a new product, Hypalon, at its major site at Maydown, in Londonderry. Dupont has provided very valuable employment in the Londonderry area for the past 20 years, and the investment announced today, which will be in excess of £40 million, is a demonstration of the company's continuing commitment to Northern Ireland as a manufacturing location throughout the 1980s and, I hope, beyond.

In addition to improving employment prospects for the firm itself, this investment will create several hundred jobs in the construction industry over the next two years. When completed, the plant will provide 150 good quality production jobs, thus preserving employment at the Maydown site.

Other new industries are gearing themselves up for full production. There is, for example, the Hyster Company, at Craigavon, which will be bringing on stream probably the most sophisticated and advanced factory in the world for the production of fork-lift trucks. The firm is confident of its ability to face Japanese and any other competition throughout the world.

There is the highly advanced Lear Fan project, which had a successful flight on New Year's Day. Market prospects for this fuel-efficient business aircraft are now thought to be even better than when the project was announced last year, and already there are encouraging signs of spin-off investment being attracted to Northern Ireland.

Then there are the long-established companies which are doing excellent business in spite of all the present difficulties—for example, the Hughes Tool Company, at Castlereagh, which was visited by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister during her time in Belfast and which reported to her its best performance ever.

A measure of our hope for the future is the number of companies paying their first visits to consider Northern Ireland as a possible location. This number increased from 55 in 1979 to 70 in 1980. I hope very much that it will be even higher this year.

I spoke earlier about not neglecting our existing industries. One of the most important industries in Northern Ireland is agriculture. The steady fall in farm incomes in Northern Ireland has been progressive and disturbing. I have, therefore, been considering how, consistent with our European Community and other obligations, we might seek to alleviate this difficult situation. I have no announcement to make this afternoon, because my consideration of the matter is not quite complete, but I can confirm that I have arranged to meet representatives of the Ulster Farmers Union next week to discuss my conclusions with them.

Mr. James Kilfedder (Down, North)

The right hon. Gentleman has listed those industries which he hopes will work wonders in Northern Ireland. However, the best message that he can convey to the Ulster people, who are burdened with Government expenditure cuts and other measures, is an assurance that the unemployment level will not go beyond 100,000. He should also make it clear that the present disgraceful position, where two out of three school leavers are on the dole, will soon end.

Mr. Atkins

The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that I cannot give that assurance. I am seeking to explain the thrust of Government policy. In the United Kingdom as a whole and in Northern Ireland in particular, we are trying to encourage the right kind of activity, which will enable this country to prosper. That does not mean pouring out masses of taxpayers' money to employ people for a year or two in order to make the figures look better. We want to establish good and viable jobs in profitable industries, which will not require so much Government money and which, therefore, will make that money available for all the other social improvements which the hon. Gentleman constantly presses on me.

Mr. James A. Dunn (Liverpool, Kirkdale)

I wish the right hon. Gentleman success in his forthcoming talks with the Ulster Farmers Union. Will he have second thoughts about abolishing the agricultural trust, beacause that presents exactly the same opportunity for success in agriculture as the local enterprise development unit has done in other areas?

Mr. Atkins

If the hon. Gentleman casts his mind back he will recall that only the other day we passed the order abolishing the trust. Therefore, I am afraid that he is too late. My discussions with the UFU will take place next week, and I intend to put some propositions forward at that time.

Let me point the way forward. In the face of all the difficulties in Northern Ireland I suggest that the Government and the people of Northern Ireland, if they act together, can tackle those difficulties realistically and with ultimate and lasting success.

Mr. Kilfedder

When?

Mr. Atkins

The Government have their part to play. As the House knows, they are seeking to play it. I should like to mention one particularly important development of Government policy in that regard. One of the most serious obstacles to the development of productive investment is the high cost of electricity, which derives from a heavy dependence upon oil-fired power stations within an isolated system.

When in power, the Labour Party took a useful first step in writing off debt and making a subsidy available over five years. As the right hon. Gentleman said, it was £20 million a year for five years. At the time, it was aimed at reducing industrial tariffs. Unfortunately, in the intervening years we have seen that such a fixed sum of money does not work, because it is not enough. In fact, it is nothing like enough. During the years in which I have been responsible for Northern Ireland affairs it has had to be increased. Even if that subsidy were not coming to an end at the end of next year we would still have to look at the problem to see what ought to be done, because a fixed sum of money, even £20 million, does not give reasonable stability. Industrial consumers, in particular, need to look further ahead than just a year or two to obtain the kind of assurance about future supplies and costs that every industrialist looks for.

The significance of the announcement made by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister during her visit to Northern Ireland last week is not just that it commits us to bringing tariffs—domestic as well as industrial—more closely into line with tariffs in England and Wales, but that it accepts the obligation to keep them there. I hope that that will give assurance and relief to the whole Northern Ireland community.

Mr. Gerard Fitt (Belfast, West)

Can the right hon. Gentleman confirm that the extra money that is to be found for the electricity undertaking in order to bring its prices more closely into line will not be taken out of any other Northern Ireland programmes? Will it be extra money from central Government, or will it be taken off other essential Northern Ireland services?

Mr. Atkins

The details of precisely how this scheme will work will be settled within a few days. They must be, because my right hon. Friend also said that the tariff increases due on 1 April would be subject to review. Within a few days I shall be able to give the House all the details of how the scheme will work. I note what the hon. Gentleman and many others have said on the subject.

We shall not be able to move forward without the concerted co-operation of Government and people working together. We can do a certain amount, but people can do a lot more. The people of Northern Ireland do a lot more, because, contrary to the impression that many people get from the newspapers, the Northern Ireland people work together. They are enterprising and hardworking. The most effective confirmation of that, as hon. Members representing Northern Ireland constituencies know, comes from firms which have invested there.

It seems ironic that at the moment it is almost easier to talk to an American business man 3,000 or 4,000 miles away about investment opportunities in Northern Ireland than it is to talk to business men in many parts of Great Britain. Unfortunately, the explanation is simple. Day after day, and night after night, the television screens and newspaper columns in Great Britain present a picture of Northern Ireland which is almost wholly depressing, unstable and violent. As we all know, it is totally unrepresentative. Because of that, people are reluctant to take up investment opportunities in Northern Ireland—not just in the industrial sector but in the commercial sector as well—which they might think attractive in another part of the world.

I want to make a head-on attack on that problem, but it is not something that I can do alone or which the Government can do by themselves. It needs the backing of the whole Northern Ireland community. It needs evidence that however divided people may be on some issues—on political matters and others—they are united in wanting to protect and create employment and in seeking to give potential investors the reassurances which they need about the community's attitudes to them.

When Sir Philip Foreman spoke at a dinner at which the Prime Minister was present a fortnight ago he struck exactly the right note. He said that the people of Northern Ireland must show that they stand together to promote Northern Ireland's interests. I agree with him, and I intend to take up that approach in discussions with him, with Mr. Jim McCusker, of the Northern Ireland committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, and with others over the next few weeks. That is something that I wish to develop over the coming months.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell (Down, South)

In furthering this effort to bring the correct balance and the truth to the point of view held in Great Britain about the real circumstances of Northern Ireland, will the right hon. Gentleman consider how he can make more use of the contribution of individual hon. Members representing Northern Ireland constituencies? It often seems ironical that with agencies working to that end in Great Britain the services of my colleagues and myself, which would be readily available for the purpose, are so little used.

Mr. Atkins

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his offer of help, which includes the help of his colleagues beside him. I am anxious to use any instrument, if I may so describe the right hon. Gentleman, to further this cause. I shall take particular note of what he says.

In none of what I have said have I sought to minimise the magnitude of the problems or the seriousness of the situation in Northern Ireland. However, we shall do no service to anybody in Northern Ireland by sending forward from this Chamber only a message of total gloom. However difficult the short-term situation may be—and it is difficult—it must be to the ultimate advantage of Northern Ireland to restore the economic health of the whole nation. The Province cannot be a vigorous limb on an ailing body. As I have sought to show, in the midst of all the difficulties there are definite signs of hope. I have referred to some of them.

We are embarked on no quick or flashy transformation but on a long and at times painful struggle towards real efficiency, real competitiveness and real profitability. It is not an easy policy, nor in its early stages is it a popular one. No real future for Northern Ireland or for any other part of the United Kingdom can be built upon a programme of inflated public expenditure, borrowing and taxing for today's consumption rather than for tomorrow's prosperity. We believe in what we are doing, and we shall stick to it.

4.33 pm

Mr. James Molyneaux (Antrim, South)

The official Opposition are to be commended on the choice of title—the economic problems of Northern Ireland—for the subject of this Supply day debate.

As the Secretary of State said, we have had countless debates on what has been called the Northern Ireland problem, but they have been futile because Northern Ireland is not itself a problem; still less is it a problem to which a solution has to be found. Northern Ireland is a region of the United Kingdom with problems similar to those of other regions in the Kingdom. During the past few days we have debated those other regions and their problems, usually on the initiative of Her Majesty's Opposition. Today's debate takes place in that context, and it is the proper context.

This is a United Kingdom debate, unlike the Northern Ireland field days, almost as frequently as every quarter, when we debate Northern Ireland Appropriation orders. This is not a benefit day for Northern Ireland Members alone. It is a day when Parliament has chosen to demonstrate its concern for the Northern Ireland region of the United Kingdom. For that reason I hope that we shall hear speeches from those representing constituencies outside Northern Ireland.

It is no accident that the correct formula and setting has been produced by Her Majesty's Opposition, for it was they, when in Government from 1974 to 1979, who made steady progress in restoring stability to Northern Ireland. The Secretary of State has shown how that is perhaps the most basic requirement of all. If I were asked to attribute the main share of the credit I should without hesitation name the right hon. Member for Barnsley (Mr. Mason) and the right hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. Concannon), who opened the debate so effectively. We are delighted to have with us the hon. Member for Liverpool Kirkdale (Mr. Dunn), who made such a valuable contribution to Northern Ireland, especially to its agriculture.

Those right hon. and hon. Members understood the overpowering need for a coherent programme that would provide for a firm and consistent attitude to criminal violence, the avoidance of political instability and a settled approach to the economy. It is my hope that right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House will seize the opportunity to join in identifying the junctions where we have diverted from that settled course.

One such junction was August 1979, when kites were flown and rumours began to circulate that the new Conservative Government were about to take a political initiative. That well-worn phrase warmed the hearts of every terrorist and opportunist in the land. There followed a year of speculation about deals, compromises, solutions and structures. In the end there was the predicted disillusionment and disappointment.

As if that were not enough, in July 1980, all expenditure which applied to and in Northern Ireland alone was frozen. It is difficult to imagine a more damaging economic and business upset. Even now we have not recovered fully from the effects of the so-called reallocation which came at the end of the freeze. I hope that for the remaining lifetime of this Parliament we shall be spared both political initiatives and financial disruption.

Alphabetically and in order of importance agriculture is Northern Ireland's first industry. I welcome the Secretary of State's statement that he is finalising his response to the proposals of the Ulster Farmers Union. Does the right hon. Gentleman recall that when he and his right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food met representatives of the union those representatives argued for strengthening beef support and stressed the vital need for a substantial increase in the variable premium? I shall take the liberty of reinforcing the demands that were properly made by the representatives of the union on that occasion. The right hon. Gentleman implied that his mind was not quite made up, so, some stiffening of his resolution can do no harm.

In the intensive sector the situation is rapidly worsening. We have never accepted the EEC Commission's refusal to continue the feed price allowances and something like the Italian agreement for Northern Ireland. It is a refusal based on the excuse that the Italian derogation will be phased out. It is a professed EEC objective which, like many others, will never be achieved if Italy and France choose to ignore the commandment.

My simple demand is that the cumbersome and discriminatory regulations must be altered drastically to enable Northern Ireland's grain traders to provide their customers with feeding stuffs at prices that they can afford. If they are not, the customers and the grain traders will be wiped out.

As milk prices are fully under the Government's control the case for milk aid, so effectively made by the hon. Member for Devon, West (Mr. Mills) on 9 March, is unanswerable. The Government and the EEC must recognise the twin problems of remoteness and the low percentage of liquid milk consumption in Northern Ireland. Either problem qualifies Northern Ireland dairy producers as a special case. Together they constitute a formidable challenge that can no longer be ignored. In their battle with their Treasury colleagues and with their EEC overlords, I hope that Northern Ireland Ministers will find their arms strengthened by a reminder that when milk aid was paid in 1978–79 and in 1979–80 the EEC authorisation was not fully used. It is estimated that there is cover left for about £3.5 million under that authority. That is a tidy sum to be going on with before the end of the current financial year.

When the union leaders met those Ministers on 15 March they appear to have been promised action in terms of days rather than months. That was a variation of a promise that had been made in this House on another famous occasion. The promise was made more than two months ago. I am glad that the close season has ended. However, I hope that we are not witnessing a delaying tactic that seeks to avoid further spending in the current financial year. A refusal to give the promised help for 1980–81 would be totally unacceptable, because provision must be made separately for 1981–82. Therefore, after the meeting between the Secretary of State and representatives of the Ulster Farmers Union I shall look forward to hearing some good news.

I turn to the industrial sector. I should like to give the Secretary of State and the Minister of State an opportunity to clarify the position about individual undertakings. Although I appreciate what the Secretary of State said about the delicacy of the Euroweld position, I should like to know whether, after much delay and misunderstanding, the unions and the receiver have reached an agreement. If so, I should like to ask a slightly less delicate question. Are the Minister and the Department of Commerce willing to give some aid to the company, perhaps by making available outstanding grants, which would enable the reorganised company to renew its contract or to negotiate a new contract with the Calor/Kosangas company? The contract could then be retained in the United Kingdom and would not go elsewhere.

Both Front Bench spokesmen paid tribute to Short Brothers. I wholeheartedly join them in that tribute. I understand that Short Brothers is in competition with British Aerospace for a refurbishing contract for five Canberra aircraft. The contract is worth about £7 million. More importantly, it will secure employment for up to 100 people at Shorts and perhaps for a large number of small subsidiaries in Belfast. It cannot be contested that Short Brothers has the design facilities for the contract. It must be the most natural company to undertake the work. If the contract were granted, it would give the lie to the idea that Shorts is no longer to be included in defence programmes. I hope that the Minister will give the House an assurance on that point. I understand that existing Ministry of Defence work is reaching its final stages at Short Brothers; hence the vital importance of obtaining the new contract.

I turn to the subject of Harland and Wolff. What progress has been made by the Minister on exploring the possibility of making a site available at the Belfast shipyard to John Rinnie Ltd., which manufactures semi-submersible oil rigs? I understand that each rig costs approximately £40 million, would provide about 250 new jobs, and would consolidate another 150. I appreciate that the company is new, and perhaps untried, but as about 50 such oil rigs are ordered each year throughout the world it is important to pursue negotiations with the company and to ensure close co-operation and co-ordination between the company and Harland and Wolff.

In recent days, my attention has been drawn to the fact that the British Steel Corporation exports to firms in the Irish Republic and takes punts at the equivalent of sterling value. It appears that it is thereby giving a 25 per cent. discount on condition that the firms in the Republic do not export raw materials or products to any part of the United Kingdom. I hope that the Minister will clarify that point. Evidence exists that certain firms in the Republic are breaking, or circumventing that condition and are tendering in Northern Ireland, where they can sell steep at a cheaper price than that at which Northern Ireland firms can purchase. I need hardly say that that action is disastrous for some small firms in Northern Ireland. If it continues, many of them will be put out of business. Will the Government give an assurance that they will take tough and effective action to prevent such cheating?

I turn to the distress experienced in the man-made fibre industry. There appear to be hopes of salvaging something from Courtaulds and of retaining a significant element of the British Enkalon plant in Antrim. We have been greatly encouraged today by the Secretary of State's remarks. We hope that he and his colleague will give sympathetic consideration to the sensible proposals that are being submitted—after careful consideration—by the two companies concerned.

The right hon. Member for Mansfield drew attention to the special difficulties of the construction industry in Northern Ireland. I am sure that the Secretary of State and his ministerial team are well aware of them. May I ask Treasury Ministers—in their absence—to remember that when they discuss and plan a general reduction in capital expenditure they not only curtail Northern Ireland's construction industry but are in danger of wiping it out?

I turn to the all-important question of energy costs. I trust that the Under-Secretary of State—the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Patten)—has had time to study the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Armagh (Mr. McCusker) and will feel that he was a little unfair when he suggested in the Appropriation order debate that my hon. Friend had prepared his speech before the Prime Minister's welcome announcement on electricity costs. A few minutes later, the Minister of State—the hon. Member for Bosworth (Mr. Butler)—regretted that hon. Members had spent so much time searching out detail instead of acknowledging the importance and firmness of the Prime Minister's commitment."—[Official Report, 9 March 1981; Vol. 1000, c. 728] Within an hour of the Prime Minister's speech at Stormont I said, in a television interview, that the concession was the greatest achievement since the granting of equal representation in 1977. I stand by that statement. We cannot be accused of churlishness when we proceed from that point to ask, as my hon. Friend the Member for Armagh did, how it will be implemented. Presumably the Secretary of State and his colleagues are addressing their minds to that question. Indeed, the Secretary of State has given some indication of the complexities involved.

In its report published yesterday, the Economic Council for Northern Ireland stated: While the Prime Minister's commitment to bring electricity tariffs in Northern Ireland more closely into line with those in England and Wales appears to be a welcome development the Economic Council has two reservations about the proposal. First, to the extent that the subsidy is financed from a reallocation within the existing Northern Ireland budget, it will bring no net advantage to the region as a whole. Second, by meeting the commitment through a Government subsidy a degree of uncertainty will always remain. That point was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Armagh. The report then used the following key phrase: This could be avoided in large measure if the commitment was to be affected through financial integration of the electricity industries in Northern Ireland and Great Britain, In saying yesterday what my hon. Friend said on 9 March about the implementation of the scheme, neither the Northern Ireland Economic Council nor my hon. Friend was being churlish.

The Northern Ireland Economic Council made that same statement exactly three years ago. As my hon. Friend said, it has been gathering dust somewhere in the files on the shelves of the Department of Commerce. We are both on strong ground. We have both been saying this for years, month in month out, in the House and outside. Today, together, we are saying that while talk of absolute "postalisation" of energy costs may be an oversimplification, we are convinced that there must be financial, and as far as possible physical, integration of energy. Bringing those costs more closely into line and keeping them there—to use the Prime Minister's own words—would be the greatest single contribution that the Treasury could make to the well-being of all the people of Northern Ireland.

For a text for a conclusion I return to Hansard of 9 March 1981, at column 728, where the Minister of State is reported as saying that he had "looked for greater enthusiasm" for the Prime Minister's announcement on electricity costs. Perhaps he is correct, because in Northern Ireland much of the publicity surrounding the Prime Minister's visit tended to concentrate on less positive aspects.

Wiser heads in Northern Ireland and elsewhere did not miss the message conveyed by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom—that the Government, despite their many other distractions and commitments, were determined that Northern Ireland should be placed on an equal footing with the rest of the United Kingdom. The clear message delivered by the Prime Minister that evening in Stormont was that the political, economic and financial links would be greatly strengthened. I agree with what the Secretary of State said. It is our task to encourage industry to build on the base which we trust will be provided by the Government. It is our task to persuade Ulstermen to use that native quality of initiative and determination in taking advantage, for example, of the schemes for small industries. Perhaps we can look further afield and, by demonstrating our dependability, make Northern Ireland an attractive place in which to invest and in which to establish new industries.

I said at the beginning that Governments had a duty to understand the relationship between political stability and economic progress. But an even heavier duty rests on all who live in Northern Ireland to ensure that the presented picture of our Province is one of a settled community which, having survived the very worst that terrorism could do for 10 long years, will not itself throw away the fruits of all the sacrifices of those years.

4.52 pm

Mr. James Kilfedder (Down, North)

Thanks are due to the official Opposition for providing time for this debate on the economic problems of Northern Ireland. The right hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. Concannon) made an effective and unanswerable case. I say "unanswerable" because I listened with patience to the Secretary of State and heard no answer to his case. I expected to hear a message of hope from the Secretary of State but I did not hear much that would bring joy to the breasts of Ulster people—certainly not to the 100,000, including two out of three school leavers, who are out of work.

Mr. John Biggs-Davison (Epping Forest)

I am most grateful to the hon. Member for giving way so early in his speech. The right hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. Concannon) spoke of an alternative approach to that of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, which the hon. Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder) criticised. But has the hon. Gentleman any idea, from what was said by the right hon. Member for Mansfield, what that alternative approach is?

Mr. Kilfedder

I gave way out of the kindness of my heart. Obviously, I should not have done so, because I have spoken in several debates on these questions. Indeed, I spoke only last week on the appropriation order. Those hon. Members who take part in these debates have made out cases, and we are still waiting for an answer. I know what the Opposition have stated and what they would like to do. I thought that the right hon. Member for Mansfield made it perfectly clear this afternoon.

It is not often that I turn back many years, but I should like to turn back to 1932, when the outdoor relief of Belfast families was reduced from 12s per week to 9s. The starving and ill-clad thousands there reacted in the only way they knew. They tore up the cobblestones from the streets with their bare hands and attacked the symbols of Government and authority. They did so because, after years of near-starvation, they suddenly found that the Government were treating their piteous condition with contempt.

That grim situation was repeated in other parts of the United Kingdom in those sad years, when unemployment reached an unprecedented level and hardship was terrible. But what happened here at Westminster? There was learned talk about interest rates, high prices, low demand, balance of payments, and the need for the Government to live within their income. That is the argument that we hear today. Thank God, the people are not starving and are certainly not in that situation today. None the less, to be unable to get work is an affront to human dignity and, psychologically, a terrible blow to any man or woman who wants work.

It is piteous that young people, leaving school full of hope and expecting to be able to achieve great things, find that the dole queue is all that the future holds for them. That is why I do not believe that the Secretary of State answered the case made out by the right hon. Member for Mansfield.

The people of Northern Ireland are looking for a message from the Government that their present plight will end, and that it will end shortly. That is why I asked the Secretary of State to give an assurance that the level of unemployment would not go beyond 100,000. I did not expect him to say that it would stop at 100,000—it might go to 110,000—but I should like him at least to say that his policies will quickly bring some upturn in the economy of Northern Ireland and an end to the despondent feeling there.

Great anger has been expressed—rightly so—at the figure of 2½ million unemployed in Great Britain. Dire warnings have been sounded by many hon. Members about what would happen if that figure, as some fear, were to reach 3½ million. But we in Northern Ireland have 100,000 unemployed, which is the equivalent, on a population basis, of just over 4 million people unemployed in Great Britain. That is a vast army of unemployed in a region which has been savaged by the psychopathic killers of the Provisional IRA, whose activities simply add to the already terrible conditions in Northern Ireland.

Perhaps people would be able to bear their present burden more easily if they did not have to face terrorism. The terrorists are doing their best to destroy the places of work of ordinary workers. That must make it difficult for everyone concerned, including the Government.

But I am not speaking only of men and women who have no work. I am speaking also of economic devastation, which I think everyone accepts is likely to condemn Ulster and its people to life in an industrial wasteland unless the Government change their policies. All the evidence of the last year or so is that businesses are closing down. One Belfast newspaper says that the worst is still to come in the textile industry.

The Government give a catalogue of what they hope will happen, but those who are living in Northern Ireland, and others who are interested in Northern Ireland, know that the position will get worse. It is no comfort to the Ulster people to have from the Government this catalogue of more jobs in some distant future, when no date is given.

Two weeks ago when the Prime Minister announced to the House that she was making an unexpected visit to Northern Ireland I assumed that she would carry with her a bundle of solid and specific proposals which would help to save the situation in Northern Ireland. Her only concrete offer was on electricity. I am grateful for that offer, but it did not come out of the blue or out of the goodness of the Government's heart. I have been demanding it for many years, as have other hon. Members.

I was surprised that the right hon. Lady could not be specific about the proposals. The Government still cannot be specific about where the money will come from. The right hon. Lady went, perhaps at the behest of the official Unionist Party, to block the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) and she covered her proposals by saying that she would be bringing an economic package. That package was the proposal about electricity. If it had been thought out properly she would have been able to give the details at the time. However, I am grateful for the proposal. It is only an attempt to bring some justice to Northern Ireland. Justice has been demanded for many matters, not just for electricity.

It is a pity that the Prime Minister was not properly briefed about the economic and social differences between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Most of her officials, perhaps all of them, have no direct experience of the hardship of life in that part of the United Kingdom. They could read a number of reports, including the report by Professor Isles in the late 1940s, the Wilson report in the 1960s and the Quigley report in the mid-1970s, mentioned by the right hon. Member for Mansfield. All those reports and many other publications have spelt out the facts again and again for the Government and for their officials, if the latter cared to read the reports.

To listen to some Ministers, one would imagine that facts were an invention of the Devil. It is not a question of reinterpreting the figures in a new or more relevant way. For some Ministers it seems to be a point of principle—if not of honour—to misinterpret the most obvious statistics and to turn reality on its head.

Without wanting to bore the House, I must give a few indisputable statistics. The cost of living in Ulster is higher than in any other region of the United Kingdom. Average retail prices are 6 per cent. above the United Kingdom average. The cost of fuel, transport and food is significantly above the cost in other regions, and the family income needed in Northern Ireland to sustain a given standard of living is greater than that for any other region. What a family in Scotland can buy for £4,500 a year costs an Ulster family over £5,000 a year. What about parity for the people of Northern Ireland? They pay the same taxes, so why should they pay more for food? Why should the cost of living be greater in the Province than in the rest of the United Kingdom?

As for the quality of life, we have the worst housing in the United Kingdom, the highest unemployment, the highest rates of sickness and the largest number on family income supplement. As I said in the debate last week, the Government countenance the extraordinary fact that 50 per cent. of the workers in the building industry are out of work at a time when there is a desperate need for houses, particularly for young people who wish to set up homes of their own. That is utter nonsense.

If the Government are sincere in their boast that all parts of the country are equal, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland should be treated equally. That has long been accepted in social security terms, ever since the 1938 reinsurance agreement. However, to treat Northern Ireland on a par with the rest of Great Britain in national economic policy means that the social and industrial conditions in the Province must be brought up to the United Kingdom average. If that does not happen, almost every national policy—wage restraint, cash limits, interest rates and expenditure cuts—will have more rigorous consequences in Ulster than in other regions.

For example, changes in public expenditure have a direct bearing on Northern Ireland. Expenditure cuts mean a considerable loss of jobs with no compensatory increase in employment in the private sector. Public sector employment is a stimulus to economic activity and not the drain on financial resources which it may be in other regions. That is why I ask the Secretary of State to reconsider public expenditure cuts in Northern Ireland and to consider the lesson of experience that public expenditure means that many people are usefully employed.

Finally, a national policy which does not have as one of its aims the equalisation of the quality of life among the different regions is not a national policy. It is a sectional policy intended to serve sectional interests. Any application of such a policy converts the two nations theory into two nations in practice. That is what has happened—that Northern Ireland is separate from the rest of the United Kingdom. It is a poor relative that is just about accepted but none the less allowed to suffer a lower standard than Great Britain.

An obsession with policy which elevates control of the money supply to a religious sacrament eliminates any possibility of a regional policy. Regional policies are unthinkable in such circumstances because competing economic strategies lead to internal conflict. As long as the self-righteous proconsuls of the Chicago school of laissez-faire political economics hold sway over the Government there is no hope or expectation—I know that the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) disagrees with me—of a sound, regional policy for Northern Ireland or any other region of the country. That is why I was disappointed in the speech of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. It offers little hope for the Ulster people, who deserve some hope for the future.

5.9 pm

Mr. Stephen Ross (Isle of Wight)

I shall be brief, as I know that the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) wishes to speak. I support the comments of the Secretary of State towards the end of his speech about the need to paint a more honest picture of the situation in Northern Ireland. Being realistic, however, we know that we shall not make real progress in the provision of jobs until the violence has come to an end. The right hon. Gentleman must know from his visits to America and elsewhere that that is the pill that his representatives trying to bring commerce and investment to Northern Ireland have to swallow. My goodness, they have a big job to do. I hope that the House welcomes President Reagan's St. Patrick's day message. I do not know whether the visit of the right hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. Concannon) and his two colleagues had anything to do with that, but we seem to have got the message across.

Living on an offshore island with not dissimilar problems to those of Northern Ireland, I often look with envy at the array of financial incentives and back-up organisations in the Province, including NIDA and LEDU, which has done a first-class job, the Department of Commerce and the availability of EEC funds, although one could inquire whether those funds are additional to what is normally available from Departments in this country.

A press release told us recently that Mr. Dennis Kirby, a senior official of the European Investment Bank, had made a two-day visit to Northern Ireland. The release said that there was to be the promotion of small manufacturing or tourism projects involving new capial investment. It said that loans of between £15,000 and £2.5 million would be available at attractive rates of interest, and that the scheme was to be administered by the Department of Commerce. I hope that we can be given a little more information about that. Is that additional money? May we have more facts and figures? Has any application been made to date? Certainly money for tourism projects should be of interest to Northern Ireland. We on the Isle of Wight would be enormously interested if we could get some of that money.

I remind the House of the welcome initiative made by Mr. Brendan O'Riordan and his organisation North/South and the efforts that have come from the South. They could do with a bit more help from us. One welcome aspect is the encouragement that they are giving to industries to cooperate on both sides of the border and to run joint exhibitions also financial help for students from the South to attend universities in the North.

One such university is that at Coleraine. I read in The Observer on Sunday that Coleraine may lose its university status. I hope that that will not happen, because until comparatively recently Coleraine managed to attract 10 per cent. of its students from outside Northern Ireland. It must have been hoped that there would be students going over from Great Britain. Unfortunately, that figure has dropped to less than 2 per cent., but is there not some possibility of giving Mr. O'Riordan's initiative some help and encouraging students to go up from the South? That must be a good thing.

The Observer produced a breakdown of Protestant and Catholic attendance; it is 50 per cent. each way. A student's religion does not matter a damn when he is at Coleraine university. The only university in Europe that has closed in recent times is that on Malta. I hope that we shall not follow suit and say that Coleraine is to be the next. I plead that Coleraine should be assured that it will retain its university status.

I agreed with the Secretary of State when he made it clear that if a resurgence is to take place it must come from small concerns. That is why it is doubly sad to hear that a small firm, Tyrone Glass, which makes an excellent product, is laying off 50 employees. I do not know how many employees are left, but virtually all the staff must have gone. We need some figures about the number of jobs that have been introduced into Northern Ireland and how long they have remained. Are we losing some of those new jobs? I suspect that we are. What is the cause? I sell Tyrone Glass and I know that it is a good product. I am not sure whether it has been pushed enough in the rest of the United Kingdom. Could we promote the products of Northern Ireland to a greater extent in Great Britain?

The other matter that affects trade is the exchange rate with the South, which cannot help exporters. Until recently goods from the North were 25 per cent. dearer in the South. That is a national policy, but it is a great pity that there is that difference between the pound and the punt.

No one has mentioned Harland and Wolff—I suppose that no one dares to do so—but it has just built some new ferries for Sealink. Delivery was late, but I am told that they are good ships and that British Rail is satisfied with them. We need some new ferries for the Isle of Wight. The order has been passed and I wonder whether it could be expedited and whether Harland and Wolff could be given at least some of the orders for the cross-Solent ferries.

The petrol price increase will have a traumatic effect on the economic problems of Northern Ireland. Everything will rise in price. It is doubly bad in an area which is so dependent on transport costs. At the risk of incurring the wrath of the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley), I remind the House that a gallon of four-star petrol costs £1.64 on the Isle of Wight. We do not get cheap petrol. I know that the price is cheaper in Northern Ireland, but it is still more expensive than in the main parts of the United Kingdom.

I suggested directly to the Chancellor of the Exchequer that offshore islands should have some relief from the 20p hike. I do not know whether it can be done in the Finance Bill, but it is only fair that when Scottish islands get substantial subsidies for their shipping and for firms such as MacBrayne's, the huge petrol price increase, which will make the position of Northern Ireland exporters even worse, should not be imposed in full. There must be a way of excluding the worst affected areas from the full impact of the increase. Energy costs generally are too high in Northern Ireland. Like everyone else, I welcome the Prime Minister's recent statement, and I hope that it will be implemented quickly.

My main concern is the housing situation, which is crying out for attention. The housing policies of the Government are bad enough in the rest of the United Kingdom—I just do not understand them—but they are nonsensical in Northern Ireland, where unemployment in the construction industry in February was 24,000. The recent announcement of a further 4 per cent. reduction in Government capital expenditure on construction in 1981–82 is even worse.

According to the last house conditions survey carried out by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive in 1979, there are 141 unfit dwellings per 1,000 in the overall stock of the Province. The comparable figure for England and Wales is 46 per 1,000. That situation is bad enough, without Northern Ireland's special problems. As the executive said in its last annual report: There can be no doubt that the problems of the last decade—bringing in their wake intimidation, squatting, bombing and large-scale population movements—have contributed to making an already serious housing problem far more grave. In that situation, it is understandable that the bitterness about the cuts is felt perhaps even more deeply in Northern Ireland than in the rest of the United Kingdom. Housing associations in the Province, having geared up for a big housing push, were stopped dead in their tracks last June. Since then nothing new has gone on site.

According to the director of the Northern Ireland Federation of Housing Associations, Mr. Erskine Holmes, an enormous chance has been missed. He said: We have just gone through half a decade of lost opportunities that will not be repeated. The slums will rot faster than we can cope. The paradox is that in the late 1970s we went through a period when we had British money and sympathy, but we did not take advantage of the situation. Now we are geared up to do the job, the resources have diminished. I hope that the Secretary of State will take a lead in the Cabinet in pressing for capital resources to do something about the housing situation in Northern Ireland. We could take up a substantial number of the unemployed and do something worth while.

A high level of public expenditure in the Province is inevitable and certainly crucial at the present time if there is not to be a complete collapse of the economy. Current monetarist policies are proving disastrous to the Province.

I make a final plea. If Northern Ireland politicians could agree on a common approach, at least on the economy of the Province, it would help enormously. Events such as those of the past few weeks must inevitably make matters worse from an outside investor's point of view.

5.20 pm

Rev. Ian Paisley (Antrim, North)

I suppose that the representatives of Northern Ireland in the House should be grateful for the opportunity to discuss, in this short debate, the economic plight of our Province and that we should pay tribute to the Opposition for giving us that opportunity. No one in Northern Ireland, however, is under any illusion that debates in the House will suddenly shrink the ever-growing dole queues. The Government have set themselves on a policy that is totally disastrous to the Province. It is all very well for the Secretary of State to say, "Let us not be gloomy." What does one say to the person who has worked faithfully, produced well and done everything according to the book in the textile industry, then loses his job and is told that it is hardly likely, as he is 50, that he will ever be employed again?

The House needs to face the fact not only that there is gloom in Northern Ireland but that we shall have more gloom. At a meeting that I had with representatives of the CBI, who technically support the Government, I heard worse criticism of the Government than I have heard from any trade unionist. Those representatives told me that if present policies continued, not only factories but the small businesses that are so important to the Northern Ireland economy would close.

The hon. Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Molyneaux) introduced some matters on which I should like to express the views of myself and my colleagues. I do not believe that the House has given us equal representation. We shall not get the number of MPs for Northern Ireland that we ought to have. The UUUC, of which the hon. Gentleman's party was a member, made a decision and put forward a recommendation for the number of members in the Convention. The hon. Gentleman and the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) welshed upon their own party agreement at the Speaker's Conference. When the hon. Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder) and I moved in this House an amendment giving us equal representation, the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends sat on their backsides and refused to vote on the issue. There is no justification for their saying today that they won a great victory for equal representation. We have not got, and will not get, equal representation. We were sold short on the issue.

I was amazed to hear the hon. Member for Antrim, South condemn the Government's monetary policy, for until last Monday night he and his colleagues had voted consistently for it. In an important debate the spokesman for the Ulster Unionists, the right hon. Member for Down, South, was one of the greatest defenders of the Government's policy. It ill becomes the hon. Gentleman to tell the Government today not to take any political initiatives and not to continue with the policy that they have pursued in Northern Ireland. [Interruption.] I am glad that these remarks are at least giving some stir to the debate. It was very dead previously.

I do not wish to be side-tracked in this debate, but the Secretary of State spoke about 1974 and the great difficulty experienced since, for which the Government must bear the blame. They were well and truly warned that if they proceeded on the road, which they had mapped out at Sunningdale, to a power-sharing Executive, there would be trouble in Northern Ireland. They would not listen. Upon their heads be it. I do not agree with the right hon. Member for Down, South about 1977. If the Secretary of State had brought half the force into Northern Ireland to deal with the IRA that he brought into Balleymena to deal with the farmers of South Antrim and North Antrim, the war would have been won long ago.

The hon. Member for Armagh (Mr. McCusker), addressing his own association recently, said that the war against the IRA was not being won, not because the Army and the security forces could not win it but because their hands were tied by their political masters. That was not a speech made at a Carson trail rally. That was a speech made by an Official Unionist in the House and supported by other Official Unionists. I do not want to deal with those matters today because terrorism will have to be defeated—

Mr. Biggs-Davison

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Rev. Ian Paisley

I shall not give way. I intend to speak for only a few moments and other hon. Members wish to contribute. I shall continue my speech and complete it as quickly as possible.

It should be made clear to the right hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. Concannon) that terrorism will have to be defeated. The Prime Minister refuses to discuss in the House matters that are relevant to the people of Northern Ireland. I am not the only person who has raised this matter; the right hon. Gentleman's own leader raised it under a Standing Order, as did the right hon. Gentleman himself. If the Government want to end the uproar in Northern Ireland, they can do it. They will not do it by having a chosen few at a Stormont dinner to hear a blunt denial without any explanation. No one believed that denial. Even the press has now changed its attitude and says that more information is needed about the Dublin summit.

I want to ask the Government about the gloom in Northern Ireland. Is it a fact that the Northern Ireland Economic Council gave copies to the Northern Ireland Office of its economic assesment and requested that those copies should be distributed to the spokesman of the various parties in the House and to hon. Members representing Northern Ireland? The council informed me that it did so and that the Northern Ireland Office did not distribute the documents. An official of the Northern Ireland Economic Council was waiting at the airport today for an hon. Member to pick up the copies so that he might distribute them to spokesmen in the House and to hon. Members. I should like some response—I do not like the grin on the Minister of State's face—to that. If that happened, it is a crying shame and the height of hypocrisy for any Government to say that they are interested in Northern Ireland. Hon. Members are entitled to documents that would have enabled people to debate the subject intelligently with facts produced by the Northern Ireland Economic Council, an organisation that was brought into being by, and is supported by, the Government.

Perhaps the Government did not want hon. Members to see what the document contained. An important matter appears in paragraph 13. The Secretary of State says that we should not be gloomy, yet Northern Ireland suffered a fall in farm net incomes in 1980, provisionally estimated at 80 per cent. in real terms. The farming community in Northern Ireland is in a sad and sorry state. The Secretary of State should see the danger signals going up all over Northern Ireland among the fanning community.

The right hon. Gentleman met the farming community in the middle of January. He informed the House today that he cannot meet its representatives again until next week, when he will have some proposals to put to them. What about the financial year that ends on 1 April? Will agricultural interests in Northern Ireland receive any help, or is the Minister playing for time until this financial year has ended and another has begun? He should remember that small farmers are going out of business. They are being driven into the towns, where there is already a housing problem. These small farmers cannot continue to drift into the towns—where there is no housing—without serious problems. Agriculture in Northern Ireland is almost on its last legs. No Northern Ireland Member need try to whitewash the position, because the largest industry in the Province is in a precarious situation.

What can the Government do to help? We are not asking, and I have never asked, for special deals. I am asking for parity, not charity—I emphasise that. The Secretary of State says in this Chamber that the people of Northern Ireland are realistic, then goes round the Province with his Ministers and tells us that we must take the beating and bear the cross like the rest of the United Kingdom. I am quite prepared, as are the people whom I represent, to carry that cross and take the beating if we have the same average unemployment rate as the rest of the United Kingdom, the same price for our energy, the same average cost of living, the same average wage rates and the same average transport costs. When we have parity we shall be prepared to take the beating and carry the cross, like any other part of the United Kingdom.

It is all very well for hon. Members to say that we are grateful for what the Prime Minister tells us, but we do not yet know what she will tell us. Perhaps we shall not be so grateful after we know. My ear to Whitehall tells me that our prices will be pegged and that those across the water will come up to our level. So perhaps some hon. Members will be disillusioned about the Prime Minister's statement. Time will tell.

The Northern Ireland Office should be refunding money to the people of Northern Ireland. We have paid three times more for gas and one-third more for electricity over the years. Now we are told that we shall have some parity, but we are being given no promise that it will be the same as the rest of the United Kingdom.

We in Northern Ireland have had a raw deal. We are prepared to take whatever is coming to us, but let it be on the same scale and at the same percentage as the rest of the United Kingdom.

The farmer who produces and sells his milk in Northern Ireland has to sell it at 6p a gallon less than does the farmer on the mainland. We are a small community, and we sell only 18 per cent. of our liquid milk. The rest has to go to making butter and cheese. Consequently, the milk industry is in great difficulty.

There used to be aid for the milk industry, but I remind the Minister that two years ago all the milk aid was not taken up—£3½ million was still available. Can the Secretary of State now bring forward that £3½ million which could and should have been paid to the industry, thus giving an immediate boost to the farming community? What about the suckling cow payment of £12.37, which the EEC said could be doubled by the national Government? What about doubling it now, and thus providing the farmers with cash aid?

What about our potato industry? Does the Secretary of State know anything about it? After all, the person who is answerable to this House for agriculture in Northern Ireland is a Member not of this House but of another place. Therefore, we cannot ask a question of the Minister who is primarily responsible for agriculture. The largest industry in Northern Ireland has no spokesman in this House to answer questions directly. This is important. If The Minister responsible for agriculture in your country, Mr. Deputy Speaker, was in another place, you would kick up a fuss.

Mr. Ray Mawby (Totnes)

"Our" country. It is the hon. Member's country as well.

Rev. Ian Paisley

I thought that the United Kingdom consisted of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Mr. Mawby

It is our country.

Rev. Ian Paisley

It is our United Kingdom. It is a pity that the hon. Gentleman has not the sense to realise the drift of my argument. It is all very well for hon. Gentlemen to laugh. I came over here with representatives of the farming industry, and it is they, not I, who say that it is unfair that we do not have a Minister who sits in the Commons, whom we could question directly about what happens in Northern Ireland. How is it possible to deal with education on the one hand and agriculture on the other?

One way out for milk producers in Northern Ireland is to take their liquid milk to the rest of the United Kingdom. That is what the industry has now decided to do. Let the House take warning. I do not want to hear hon. Members say that it is terrible that cheap milk is to be imported into Scotland and the North of England from Northern Ireland, because the Milk Marketing Board has told me that it will have to do that. The House should wake up and realise that farmers in Northern Ireland are in a very serious situation.

The farmers who produce potatoes tell me that they will be out of work at the end of the season. I do not know where the Government will find the money to pay all the unemployed. It would be better to put money into industry, instead of saving money for redundancies.

The Secretary of State said today that his Ministers intended to consider many things. What will they consider about Courtaulds? A sum of £1.9 million could save what is left of the Courtaulds plant at Carrickfergus and make it viable. Will the Minister provide that? He already has the document. I attended the meeting at which his officials said that they had never seen employees produce a document that was so well researched and presented, and offered such prospects to save the rest of the Courtaulds plant. Will the Minister offer £.1.9 million or any money at all, or will Courtaulds go under completely?

What about the other part of Courtaulds that is in the balance—Moy Park? What about Enkalon? Or shall we hear some nice platitudes? Will Enkalon close, too? How many factories will be closed in Northern Ireland?

Mr. Barry Porter (Bebington and Ellesmere Port)

I am a Protestant.

Rev. Ian Paisley

I shall not give way. I might have given way to the hon. Gentleman had he been a Roman Catholic, but I shall not do so.

Mr. Biggs-Davison

rose——

Rev. Ian Paisley

The hon. Gentleman can write in The Daily Telegraph. It will take what he says. So there is no need for me to give way.

The situation in Northern Ireland is most serious. We may laugh in this Chamber, but the 100,000 people on the dole are not laughing. The people whose case I am putting today, particularly the farmers, are in a serious and tragic position. Every Northern Ireland Member knows that if this continues, even if there is a subsequent upturn in trade, Northern Ireland will be in no position to take advantage of it. If we have no factories, how can we produce goods? If we have no trainees, how can we have the expertise to do the job? If we do not have the management and the order book, what happens?

The Secretary of State has a solemn and serious responsibility. He says that he is still considering these matters. He should have been able to come to the Dispatch Box today and say, "Here is the policy that we intend to pursue for the regeneration of industry in Northern Ireland and to give fresh hope to the people of that country."

The Northern Ireland people are not suckers. They do not want charity; they want work. They are good workmen. They can do the job. They have competed against the rest of the United Kingdom even though there is a water barrier and they have to pay high rates for energy. Are such people now to be sacrificed on the altar of the Government's monetary policy, or will the Minister tonight say something that will help the people of Northern Ireland to go forward with some little hope?

I trust that there will be a U-turn. We hear that the lady is not for turning. If the Government do not turn they will have a problem on their hands that neither they nor any hon Member will be able to handle. They had better face up to the tragedy that is coming in Northern Ireland.

Mr. Porter

Through political agitation.

Rev. Ian Paisley

Not through political agitation, but as a result of unemployment. The hon. Member does not know what he is talking about. Of course there is political disquiet because the Prime Minister will not tell us what she should tell us. There will be more than political disquiet. There will be disquiet because people who want to work and should be allowed to are being denied the right to work by the Government's refusal to make available the money that would make factories viable. I am not talking about lame ducks or about factories whose closure is inevitable. I am talking about factories which management and employees say could be made viable. Cash flow difficulties are preventing them from being viable. The Government should take the opportunity to do something about the problem.

5.41 pm

Mr. Gerard Fitt (Belfast, West)

I am grateful to the official Opposition's leader and spokesman on Northern Ireland for making time available for today's debate. The Leader of the Opposition sat through the opening speches. Only rarely is prime time in the House given to a debate on Northern Ireland. We are more used to debating Northern Ireland at nocturnal hours. I am delighted that more hon. Members than usual are present. However, many other hon. Members must be within the precincts. If they were terribly concerned about Northern Ireland they would be in the Chamber hearing about the problems.

As the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) said, this is a serious debate. It was not lighthearted until he tried to divert us down the Carson trail. He carried into the debate the disagreements within his party and with the Government.

The hon. Member for Antrim, North was not here to vote against the Budget proposals. He was not here to vote on the Northern Ireland Appropriation order. He has no Carson trail arranged for this evening, so he can find time to be here. If his heart was where his mouth was he would have been here on Monday evening to enter the Lobby seven or eight times to vote against the proposals that will have such a disastrous effect on Northern Ireland.

Increasingly I agree with the hon. Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder) about the economic plight of Northern Ireland. Clichés in reference to the PSBR and the balance of payments do not mean anything in Northern Ireland. However, in May 1979, 62,000 people in Northern Ireland were unemployed, and now nearly 100,000 people are unemployed. That is the accusation that we level at the Government, and it is that which they must answer, because they are responsible for that increase.

The Government cannot argue that all the jobs that have gone meant nothing. The Secretary of State says that we do not want insecure and non-productive jobs. He says that money must be invested to provide secure jobs. No one disagrees with that. However, the jobs that have been lost since the Government came to power were not all nonproductive.

The 100,000 unemployment figure is a tragedy for such a small area. When one analyses the figures one finds that the conclusion is much more important than the PSBR. Lord Blease gave a figure in the House of Lords last week which should cause anxiety. He said that of the 100,000 unemployed, 42,928 are under the age of 24. That is 43 per cent. of the total.

In the years from leaving school to the early twenties people begin to develop an attitude to life and, more important, to industrial life. During that time a young man meets a girl and begins to think about getting married. He begins to think of a future, of building a home and putting down roots in the community. Those early years are the most formative years in the lives of young male persons, and 43,000 of them are unemployed. They have no hope, no prospects and no future. If the Government persist in their mad pursuit of monetarism that figure will increase.

Mr. Martin Stevens (Fulham)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Fitt

I shall give way if the hon. Gentleman is prepared to answer my questions. The Secretary of State said that the jobs were being abolished because the Government had decided to abolish them, as they were not producing anything. He said that they were a liability to the monetarist approach and the system, and a challenge to the whole Tory doctrine.

I do not know a great deal about economics. I am not a subscriber to the Marty Feldman school of economics—some people call it the Milton Friedman school. Does the Secretary of State regard jobs in the construction industry in Northern Ireland or anywhere else as non-productive? In my ignorance of economics I am inclined to the opinion that construction workers build and produce. They build houses, hospitals, schools and factories. They produce the buildings that are so necessary to any civilised community.

Northern Ireland has the most appalling housing conditions in Western Europe. Thousands of people are on housing waiting lists. Thousands of people live in substandard homes. A total of 24,000 bricklayers, plumbers, carpenters and other workers in the construction industry could be building homes, repairing them and adding to the sum total of life in Northern Ireland. Instead, they are all on the dole. Do not let anyone tell me that there is not something wrong with that.

Mr. Stevens

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the economy of Northern Ireland is different from that of the remainder of the United Kingdom because it has relied on three industries—namely, agriculture, shipbuilding and textiles, of which shipbuilding and textiles are in disarray? To establish his case he must demonstrate that the downturn in those two industries is the direct fault of the Government.

Mr. Fitt

The three industries mentioned by the hon. Gentleman have nothing to do with the construction industry. I am asking questions about that industry, and not about shipbuilding. About 24,000 young people, many under 18 years of age, have no hope of finding employment in the construction industry.

A report has been produced by the Northern Ireland Economic Council. I hope that the Government will answer the charge made by the hon. Member for Antrim, North that they did not want us to see the report. That council has been recognised by the Government. It is not a fly-by-night, Left-wing or trouble-making organisation. It has a great deal of respectability. Paragraph 12 of its report states: The worst affected sectors continue to be man-made fibres, construction and agricultural. The complete closure of the Courtaulds and ICI plants at Carrickfergus and Kilroot will reduce employment in the industry to just over 3,000". Northern Ireland was once the hope of the man-made fibre industry. Tens upon thousands were employed in the industry, but only 3,000 remain.

Northern Ireland debates are especially difficult for English Members, who do not understand the effects of such job losses. A whole series of events has brought about that position in the man-made fibres industry—for example, the importation of cheaper American fibres and the EEC reverberation from that. The young people who, in the late 1950s and through the 1960s, took up jobs in that industry—which everyone thought had a great future for at least 20 years—now find themselves part of the 100,000 unemployed.

The hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. Stevens) cannot justify 24,000 unemployed in the construction industry, when Northern Ireland is crying out for houses. How can the Government justify the fact that the unemployed are a drain or a claim on the social security system? That money must be found from somewhere. Is it not better to employ people to build houses, schools, hospitals and assets that will be of value to the community for generations to come, than to allow them to idle away their time?

Mr. Porter

The hon. Gentleman's point about the construction industry is equally applicable to Merseyside, where 36 per cent. of available construction workers are unemployed. It is applicable also to other parts of the United Kingdom. The hon. Gentleman fails to appreciate that if we build all those desirable things we shall add to the public sector borrowing requirement, which he dismisses. The effect of that will be to shove up interest rates, which will have an equally undesirable effect on private industry. Is not the significant and unique aspect of the economy of the Province not that it is especially different economically but that it is different politically from the remainder of the United Kingdom? Would it not——

Mr. Speaker

Order. That is a lengthy interruption. I called the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) to address us.

Mr. Fitt

The hon. Member for Bebington and Ellesmere Port (Mr. Porter) said that Northern Ireland found itself in its current position because of political differences. Before we accept the argument that keeping people in employment will push up the public sector borrowing requirement and the interest rates, we must ask the person advancing it at what stage, and at what figure, we should stop thinking that way. Must there be 150,000 unemployed in Northern Ireland? My noble Friend Lord Blease said that there were 25,000 on short-time working in Northern Ireland. Added to the current 100,000 unemployed, that gives a total of 125,000. Others do not even sign the local register, because it is a waste of time, so the figure is probably nearer 130,000 or 135,000. The unemployed are crying out to heaven for justice. Something must be done to stop unemployment from rising. How can we expect a civilised society, any sort of normality and any political agreement or political normality in a community that has to suffer the rigours of such unemployment?

I hope that the Minister who is to reply to the debate will take the opportunity to tell us about that little electricity do. I do not think that the Prime Minister suddenly decided to go to Northern Ireland to talk about bringing electricity prices into line with those in Great Britain without having some idea of the answer. If she did not have any idea, there must be some truth in the allegation that someone said to her "Get you on that plane and stop Paisley at Ballymena." That may have been the case, but I hope that it was not.

We understand that electricity prices are to be brought into line with those in the remainder of the United Kingdom at a cost of many millions of pounds, but we were told in a written answer to a Conservative Member of Parliament, who tabled a planted question, that £60 million will be taken off the Northern Ireland budget to pay for the lowering of the electricity tariff. That happened last year, and we do not want it to happen again.

Certain matters should be clarified, especially how much, how little, or if ever, we shall receive assistance from the EEC. I repeat what I said last week, that people in Northern Ireland are told every day by the press, on the television and by the three competing hon. Members who represent Northern Ireland at the European Parliament, that some great bonanza is coming to Northern Ireland that will help farmers, the infrastructure and Belfast. The British Government have only to ask the EEC to give us £320 million for the regeneration of Belfast. I want that money to come to Belfast, but I fear that the whole matter is bunkum and that we shall not get it. It is unfair to build up people's hopes that they will get that money and that it will lead to a new way of life in Northern Ireland.

We are aware of the report of the Select Committee in another place, which said that the British Government had been pocketing money from the EEC that should be spent on the regions in Northern Ireland. That charge has been levelled not only at the British Government but at all national Governments in the EEC that are all guilty of that practice. The money that is made available from the regional and social funds is not additional to the money that would have been spent in any case in those regions. There seems to be a mass of conflicting information about what is happening.

Countries that contribute smaller sums than others and receive larger payments stand to gain a great deal. Countries that put a great deal into the Common Market—such as the United Kingdom—can probably say that the moneys that they receive are theirs anyway and that they are not getting anything back in addition to what they contributed. Additionality may not arise. It is not fair to make a region believe that it stands to gain from a great windfall or bonanza, but we have been told that time and time again in Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland ministers should be clear on what we are entitled to and what we are getting.

I am grateful to the Opposition for initiating the debate. I could continue at great length about the subjects that relate to it. However, 100,000 unemployed are now signing the register. If the hidden unemployed are included, total unemployment is 125,000 or perhaps 130,000. Reputable economists in Northern Ireland predict that by the end of 1981 between 135,000 and 140,000 will be signing the register. That will be intolerable.

At some stage there will be social discontent. That will be occasioned not by the summit talks and what we know or do not know about them, and not because of partition, the border or a divided community, but because the people do not have the facilities that they expect or the wherewithal to enable them to live what is regarded as a normal life in 1981.

The Government are responsible in that they are standing by and watching unemployment increase from 62,000 to nearly 100,000 in Northern Ireland. That is a responsibility from which they cannot run away. The people of Northern Ireland, as citizens of the United Kingdom, are entitled to Government action. They are entitled to ask the Government to ensure that the economic base is intact if and when the upturn comes.

Mr. Porter

What does the hon. Gentleman say about inflation?

Mr. Fitt

What have Northern Ireland workers done to increase the rate of inflation? When the Government took office there were 60,000 or 70,000 unemployed. Unemployment has increased to nearly 100,000. Northern Ireland workers have done nothing since 1979 to increase the rate of inflation or to cause the increased unemployment. There are hon. Members who do not represent Northern Ireland constituencies who talk about long-term unemployment. Those who sign on for six months are described as the long-term unemployed of Britain. In Northern Ireland there are those who sign on for six months, six years, 16 years, 20 years and up to 30 years. I obtained the figures from the Northern Leland Office, and they are to be found in Hansard. That is what I call long-term unemployment. That description cannot be applied to those who are unemployed for six, seven or eight months, but it must be applied to those who are unemployed for five, 10 and 20 years. In areas such as Ballymurphy, Turf Lodge, Strabane and Newry unemployment can range from 25 to 50 per cent. That is the sort of area that I represent and with which I am familiar. That is the type of area about which the Government will have to do something.

6.5 pm

Mr. John Biggs-Davison (Epping Forest)

I shall try to be brief and not repeat anything that I said on 9 March on the Appropriation order debate concerning industry, agriculture, electricity tariffs and the Northern Ireland trade unions, to which I paid tribute. I shall seek not to be diverted.

The hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) said that he would not be sidetracked—indeed, he did not give way to me—but he sidetracked the debate when he referred to Sunningdale, the war against the Provisional IRA and the security forces. Having reappeared in the House, I think that the hon. Gentleman should have seized the opportunity—it would have been in accordance with the decencies of this place—either to substantiate or to withdraw the allegations that he made against members of Her Majesty's Army, who he said were dining and wining at a Republican house at the time of the Tynan murders—a grave allegation.

Rev. Ian Paisley

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I made certain remarks in the House and you put me out of the House as a result. Surely the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mr. Biggs-Davison) is out of order in trying to raise a matter that you have dealt with already.

Mr. Speaker

Order. First, I did not put the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) out of the House. The hon. Gentleman helped to put himself out, but it was the House that decided on that action because the hon. Gentleman referred to someone as a liar and refused to withdraw that allegation. The hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mr. Biggs-Davison) has not referred to that. I hope that he will now direct his remarks to the economic issues of Northern Ireland.

Mr. Biggs-Davison

I return immediately to the debate and refer to the remarks of the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt). In common with the hon. Gentleman and with nearly every hon. Member, if not every hon. Member, who has spoken, I must say how welcome the debate has been and how unusual it has been for a regional debate. If Wales, Scotland or an English region were being debated, one would expect Members representing constituencies in that region to speak and for few, if any, hon. Members from outside the region to make a contribution. However, it is right that Members from every part of the kingdom should express their concern for Northern Ireland, which has suffered so much, with such patience and courage, for so long. I hope that from this debate the impression will go forth that the allegation of economic disengagement from the Province has no foundation.

Those who sometimes speak of economic disengagement, or even their desire for it, are inclined to say that Northern Ireland is a province that places a strain on the rest of the country and receives far more than its due meed of assistance from the kingdom as a whole. At present, Northern Ireland is receiving immense sums because of terrorism. That is what would happen if any other region of the United Kingdom were similarly to suffer. However, all the figures reveal that in terms of public expenditure Northern Ireland has done hardly better, if at all better, than Scotland in proportion to population.

The right hon. Member for Mansfield (Mr. Concannon) said that the situation in Northern Ireland had never been as serious as it is now. He was speaking mostly about unemployment. Of course, unemployment in Northern Ireland is terrible. It is nearly double the United Kingdom average. However, we must remember that not long ago unemployment in Northern Ireland never fell below 25 per cent. The right hon. Gentleman alluded to that, and to some extent, therefore, he contradicted his argument.

It is said by some that when the recovery comes, and it will come, Northern Ireland will be so devastated that it will be unable to take advantage of it. I shall mention one or two positive factors. First, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State told the Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce and Industry last year that Northern Ireland's performance was better than that of the United Kingdom. He observed that between 1975 and 1979 manufacturing output per head rose by 11 per cent. in Northern Ireland compared with a United Kingdom average increase of 8 per cent. This increase in productivity reflects the ability of industry here to maintain a profitable and efficient operation which can compete in national and international markets. In 1980 output in Northern Ireland rose by 1.5 per cent. In the United Kingdom as a whole it fell by 3.5 per cent. Industrial relations have been good in the Province. Those are positive factors.

The hon. Member for Belfast, West referred to unemployment in the textile industry. I thought that we might have heard a little more about that from the hon. Member for Antrim, North. Part of the problem is cheap American imports of man-made fibres. We should like to know, because Americans are tough traders, whether all that competition is fair. There is national machinery to deal with that in the Department of Trade, and there is also machinery in the EEC for that purpose. I am by no means satisfied that that machinery always works well or fast. Perhaps the Minister who replies to the debate will say something about that.

Northern Ireland, as part of the United Kingdom, is not immune to the troubles of the United Kingdom, which is gripped by a world slump. I should like to say, "amid the encircling gloom" of the debate, that just as recovery will come in the rest of the United Kingdom so it will come in Northern Ireland. I have much confidence in Her Majesty's Ministers in that regard.

I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (Mr. Butler), who presides over the Department of Commerce, has shown himself interested in and active on behalf of the industries of the Province and is doing his best to stimulate small businesses. The attraction of investment from abroad is the subject of unrivalled incentives. That is another positive factor that has not been mentioned in the debate.

I said that I trusted Her Majesty's Ministers, but people do more than Governments, as the Secretary of State said. I have much faith in the energies, enterprise and adaptability of the people in Northern Ireland. The Province has been most grievously and persistently misrepresented and maligned in different quarters in this country and in different parts of the world.

I welcome what President Reagan said in his St. Patrick's Day message. The sort of Noraid that we might like from the United States is an abatement of cheap textile exports and more investment in the great possibilities of Northern Ireland. We want from the Americans business of mutual advantage. We want a fair judgment of Northern Ireland, whether from the United States or from investors in any other country. Let investors, tourists and tour operators go there and see for themselves. Above all, let Americans go and see, because, as they will know if they study their history, it is a province upon which the foundation of their country rests.

6.15 pm

Mr. James A. Dunn (Liverpool, Kirkdale)

Merseyside has parity with Northern Ireland. Our unemployment, devastation and depredation of the environment are equal to conditions in Belfast. We have equal difficulties in housing, and our industries are in an almost identical state. In general, we have the same attitude and the same priorities. We have close identification with Northern Ireland because for a long time we have lived side by side. In years gone by it was said that Liverpool was the gateway to Ireland, although some said that it was also the exit.

I shall refer in particular to the agriculture industry of Northern Ireland. It is not receiving all possible attention and help. I was grateful to the Secretary of State for allowing me to intervene in his speech. I mentioned that the abolition of the Agricultural Trust was not to the advantage of Northern Ireland. There is nothing that can take the place of the valuable work that that organisation was doing at little cost. I should admit immediately to the Secretary of State that his predecessors in the Labour Administration were advised to do exactly what he was advised to do. Two previous Secretaries of State thought that the advice given by the Northern Ireland Office should be implemented. Those who represent Northern Ireland may have been fortunate that I was in the Province also, working in the Northern Ireland Office. I resisted that claim and demonstrated that the cost-effectiveness of the Agricultural Trust should not be ignored, although it was easy and tempting to cut it out of any estimate.

Therefore, I appeal to the Secretary of State, even at this late hour, to reconsider what has been done, although the order abolishing the trust has gone through the normal parliamentary stages. He did so in respect of the Sports Council. There is no reason why he should not reflect and take more time before reaching major decisions of this sort. If he does not reverse his decision he will have to deal with the matter in other ways.

One of the major problems is to find a market for the agricultural produce of Northern Ireland, not least in milk but in the food manufacturing sector. The value-added product was bringing some financial return to those engaged in the industry. That return helped to achieve greater stability in agriculture. If the Minister wants that part of the agriculture-based industry to be maintained and to prosper he will have to deal with it by helping with marketing arrangements and in presenting the product abroad and in places where Northern Ireland agriculture-based products have not yet been seen or displayed. If he were to do that, perhaps some of my criticism—I hope that it is constructive criticism—about the demise of the Agricultural Trust would not be valid. I hope that he will take that point on board.

The Government should give special consideration to increasing the remoteness grant. If the Secretary of State and his Ministers consider the problems of the remoteness of some of the farm land in Northern Ireland, they will and that major difficulties are caused by transport and energy costs. I appreciate that there has been a promise of alleviation in that respect. Some of the land use is not bringing the income which it should produce. Some of the smallholdings are probably not as viable as they should be. That is the inheritance of those on the agricultural land in Northern Ireland and in the whole of Ireland. Whatever may be the economic factors which persuade Governments to advocate a greater merging of the smaller units to make larger economic-based and viable units, the people of Northern Ireland have resisted that because their heritage and history are bound up with the ownership of that land.

The Government should also reconsider the pig and poultry industry and, in that connection, support prices for grain. Moy Park, a subsidiary of Courtalds, may soon find that its trading potential is commercially unattractive. If that part of the industry closes, it will be disastrous. Northern Ireland poultry producers depend on Moy Park for their livelihood. What special financial support can the Government give for the pig and poultry industry? Some Northern Ireland Members state that they they are not pleading for special aid. I admire that. However, the pig and poultry sector has a special difficulty, and, therefore, a case for special aid.

Northern Ireland has special problems. It is the only part of the United Kingdom with an open border. Two sorts of currency operate on the same land mass. The CAP has different consequences for the two parts of Ireland, which causes grave difficulties. The problems for Northern Ireland farmers are exacerbated from time to time by the system. In addition, I believe that Northern Ireland has to pay a higher price for membership of the EEC than does the remainder of the United Kingdom. I do not believe that any of us wants that to be so.

The percentage of liquid milk consumption in Northern Ireland is low. It is generally about 18 per cent. of production. It has never risen above 21 per cent. It is not an easy problem to deal with. However, I see no reason why Northern Ireland should not have a special pricing arrangement. I realise that because of the volume of milk production in Northern Ireland there are complexities that we cannot deal with in this short debate. However, let me make one or two suggestions. If it exists, the loss factor of 6p per gallon could be made up by special grant aid. Special provisions could be made to sell milk into manufacturing. A deficit trading arrangement may also help to ease the problem. Such assistance may well work its way through the remainder of the industry with the beef variable premiums. It may even help to re-establish the extension of grassland for pasture. Such help would be tremendous. Help could also be given for fertilising the land. The special lime subsidy could be reinstated, which would greatly help those who are trying to make the land arable and productive.

I am sure that it was not a deliberate decision to keep the Economic Council report from the House. I say to Northern Ireland Ministers—who are listening with great care and attention—that they should re-establish and reinforce the standing arrangement that I helped to make that at all times every Northern Ireland spokesman and every party in the House should receive a copy of each report. There can, therefore, be no possibility of misunderstanding, and the responsibility is clear. If something goes wrong, is easy to find out who is responsible, and why.

Security has been mentioned. I take issue with those who talk as though terrorism comes from only one source. There is a tendency to blame one sector of the terrorist movement for everything. All terrorism in the Province does immense and equal damage. Atrocities perpetrated against the innocent civilian community are dramatic and devastating, no matter what label we put on them. I understand the emotion among Northern Ireland Members, which comes from their backgrounds. However, they may tend to overlook the effect of terrorism. They may be tempted to play down the impact of the 1977 dispute that burst forth all over the Province. At the time, para-militaries played a prominent part, in some cases aided by hon. Members who are still in the House. Those who might have been unwise in their association at that time have an opportunity to rectify the matter. I hope that they will use the opportunity to bring advantage and investment to the Province.

We all wish the Secretary of State and the Government well in Northern Ireland. If they do well, the Province will do well and we shall all do well. However, if inadvertently or unwillingly they do not achieve success, we shall all suffer the consequences. I hope that the Government will accept my constructive criticism, which was sincerely meant. I hope that they will succeed.

6.27 pm

Mr. Tom Pendry (Stalybridge and Hyde)

This has been an exceptional debate, on an exceptional subject. The adjective "unique" has been used. My right hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Mr. Concannon) set the right scene.

I agree with those who are pleased that the debate is taking place at a reasonable hour. It is good to see some hon. Members who may not be with us in the wee hours of the morning.

No one who has heard the debate will deny that the people of Northern Ireland are suffering under a heavy burden of unemployment and social deprivation. I take the point that Liverpool, Scotland, parts of Wales, the North-East and, indeed, my own area, the North-West, have great problems stemming from the Government's policies, but Northern Ireland perhaps suffers most severely.

My right hon. Friend pointed out that certain of the social and economic problems of the Province are endemic. From my experience as a Minister in the Northern Ireland Office I appreciate that there are no easy solutions to the vicious circle of industrial decline, unemployment, poor housing and heavy reliance on social security.

In recent years, of course, the problems have been compounded by violence and terrorism. The job of the Administration, of whichever party, in grappling with and trying to overcome the social and economic problems has therefore been made far more difficult. That must be said from the start.

During the past 19 months, however, especially during Appropriation debates, the Opposition have consistently highlighted the economic distress in Northern Ireland. Week by week, established, new and not so new firms have been closing down. Last month there were 99,849 registered unemployed in Northern Ireland. Since then STC has added 350 and Bridgeport United Kingdom 75, and many other firms have added to the total. The number of unemployed is therefore well over the magic figure of 100,000. In addition, there are those who are not registered. I therefore do not think that many would disagree when I say that the real figure must be about 120,000 unemployed.

On the occasion of each financial debate we have called upon the Government to arrest the economic decline of the Province by halting the cuts in public expenditure which have accounted for job losses as well as service reductions. We have urged the Government to recognise Northern Ireland as a special case deserving of special treatment. That has been our consistent theme. The economic structure there is so weak as to be unable to bear the thrust of the double-edged sword of monetarist dogma and public expenditure cuts. Week by week, and month by month, evidence has mounted to show that we were right then and we are Tight now to make that plea to the Government.

The main purpose of the debate is to put our case forcefully to the Government and to recommend that a special strategy be developed for the Province along the lines of that adopted by the Labour Administration between 1976 and 1979, in which my right hon. Friend played a major part, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Kirkdale (Mr. Dunn). It is not as though it has never been tried before. The hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mr. Biggs-Davison) asked what we had said in the debate. We have said that the Government should go back to the policies pursued by the Labour Government. My right hon. Friend spelt out clearly what our policy was then and what it would be now if we were in Government.

After three years of hard graft between 1976 and 1979, we were beginning to succeed. Jobs were being saved and new firms were being attracted to unemployment black spots. The condition of the housing stock, although we were not satisfied with it, was improving. The people of Northern Ireland were given some hope by a Government who were actually seen to care about their problems. As Professor William Black of Queen's university said not long ago, With hindsight, 1978 and 1979 were the buoyant and prosperous years for trade and commerce in the Province. Many hon. Members have presented the case with bitterness and frustration. I think that they took the lead from my right hon. Friend. I hope that the message has got across and that the Government will respond to it.

It seems that all the current forecasts of unemployment levels that they have stressed today may be underestimates. In January last year, Coopers and Lybrand, who must be the most oft-quoted consultants in the world, predicted that the level of unemployment in the Province would reach 80,000 by Christmas 1980. As we all know, the figure was nearer 100,000. This year, the same firm has predicted that 125,000 will be out of work by December. Present indications are that that figure—equivalent to 21.5 per cent.—will be reached by early autumn. Indeed, it it more than likely that the Government's own predictions for 1982–83 will be exceeded before the year is out. It is little wonder that Sir Philip Foreman, whom the Secretary of State quoted to aid his case and whom I shall now quote to aid mine, said: The terrible truth about unemployment in the Province is that the total out of work will soon outnumber the people employed in manufacturing. That is what the debate is about.

In spite of all that, the Government continue to apply their policies in Northern Ireland, even when everyone else can see that they are not working. I use the phrase in a dual sense. The Government stumble blindly on, cutting and closing, refusing to accept the truth of the situation that they have created. That is hardly a moral course of action. If there were time I should refer not to the Conservatives' manifesto, as they carefully did not say too much about Northern Ireland in that, but to the Tory Central Office pamphlet, in the "Politics Today" series, entitled: "The Northern Ireland economy: A Special Case?" A special case was argued by the Conservatives in that pamphlet. But they were in Opposition then, of course. I hope that Conservative Members will take careful note of the case that my right hon. Friend has made today for a special strategy for Northern Ireland.

I shall now put to the House several more reasons why that course of action should be adopted at the earliest possible date.

The Government's policy on housing is clearly at fault and in need of urgent review. Despite what the Under-Secretary of State with responsibility for housing said at Question Time, the plain fact is that the financial allocation to the Housing Executive in Northern Ireland has been cut for the second year running. For the new financial year the cut is £15 million, which is equivalent to the cost of building 750 houses. That is on top of cuts totalling £29 million in 1980.

The Housing Executive's building and repair programme has been curtailed, despite the fact that there are 32,000 people on the waiting list and that two out of three of those people have priority rating. Only last autumn the chairman of the Housing Executive said that 5,000 new houses would have to be built each year over the next 10 years merely to stand still. In view of the Government's cuts, that will have to be revised upwards.

Ministers have frequently dodged the housing problem in Northern Ireland by stating that the rate of finance is higher per capita than in the rest of the United Kingdom. That may well be so, but the problems are at least three times as great. The last Administration attempted to do something about the situation. Between 1974 and 1979 the rate of unfitness was reduced by more than 30 per cent. I ask the Government by how much it has been cut since the Conservatives came to office. It has undoubtedly grown, and they know it. I therefore do not suppose that I shall get an answer when the Minister replies to the debate. There is no doubt that the cuts made by the Government have interrupted the progress of 1974–79 and have reversed the achievements of the Labour Administration. Unless adequate finance for housing is made available soon, the ageing and deteriorating housing stock in Northern Ireland will become the kind of problem that Shelter recently highlighted and of which the Minister must be well aware.

The Secretary of State referred to agriculture as a most important industry, which it is. The Government have got their policy wrong in agriculture, too. The hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) and my hon. Friend the Member for Kirkdale have spelt that out. The Government have got it so wrong that the fanners in Northern Ireland are raging, as the Secretary of State knows. We thought, as I am sure they did, that he would meet them today. It seems that that was not his intention. Since January he has been putting off the day when he will meet them to tell them the hard facts of life from the Government's standpoint. When the Secretary of State meets the farmers of Northern Ireland he had better give them something good, because they are in a very angry mood. When a Northern Ireland farmer gets angry, he gets really angry. If the Secretary of State does not know that, he will soon find out.

The high cost of feedstuffs, in particular, militates against the farming community especially when so many of them are struggling to stay in business, despite the adverse trading climate brought about by the Government's policies. Special Government assistance is needed urgently if the level of pig and poultry production is not to decline further. I should like to develop that further, but there is no time.

Throughout their lifetime the Labour Government recognised that need and gave special assistance to maintain production and associated employment. I note with dismay that according to the Government's recent expenditure plans for Northern Ireland: It has not been possible to make provision for the continuation of milk aid which has hitherto been funded on a year-to-year basis". This matter has already been referred to by two hon. Members. That decision was greeted with the utmost dismay by dairy farmers in the Province. That sort of help was vital to those farmers because a much lower proportion of milk from the Province goes into the liquid market than is the case in the rest of Great Britain—on average 20 per cent., compared with 50 per cent. Consequently, the rate of return per gallon in Northern Ireland is almost two-thirds lower than it is in the rest of Great Britain. The decision not to restore milk aid demonstrates the Government's crass indifference to the plight of the dairy farmers.

Mr. Humphrey Atkins

indicated dissent.

Mr. Pendry

If the right hon. Gentleman wishes, he can get his hon. Friend to refute those figures when he replies to the debate.

It appears that, out of desperation, the Northern Ireland Milk Marketing Board now plans to send liquid milk to the mainland—as has already been mentioned by the hon. Member for Antrim, North—possibly to Lancashire ports. Those of us in the North-West would not want that. What a sorry impasse we have reached when the only way in which the Northern Ireland milk producers can draw the Government's attention to their plight is by undertaking that dramatic exercise.

Agriculture is an important industry. There are 9,000 dairy farmers and 6,000 workers in associated industries. Therefore, it must not be dismissed lightly. I am sure that Ministers are aware—although I sometimes wonder—that agriculture is the most stable industry in Northern Ireland—or at least it was up to 1979. It contributes 6 per cent. of the GNP and together with allied industries employs nearly 14 per cent. of the work force of the Province. I hope that when the right hon. Gentleman meets the farmers he will take their representations seriously.

In practically every Appropriation debate since May 1979 I have criticised the Government's negative attitude towards this industry. I had hoped that following the meeting in January we would see a breakthrough, because the Secretary of State said that he would refer to the problems within a matter of days of meeting the farmers. We are still waiting. I hope that we shall hear some good news very soon.

Rather than engaging in agonising decisions about where to get the money for the Northern Ireland budget from, the Secretary of State must go to the Cabinet and fight his corner for money for Northern Ireland. Other Secretaries of State have done so. We have seen what has happened. They have come away with extra cash. They fought their corner hard. It appears that that is an essential weakness in the Northern Ireland team. They do not seem to have the willingness to fight for their slice of the cake. It is no good hiding, as some do, behind the mantle of EEC funding—incidentally, the £40 million of aid recently announced is still not to hand—because that is not the kind of answer for which the farming community is looking.

I deal next with education. I raised this subject during the Appropriation debate, but I did not have much time then to deal with the cutback in Northern Ireland teaching staff. Whatever the Minister says about the overall teaching ratio, the plain fact is that about 400 more primary school teachers are required to bring the pupil-teacher ratio up to the standard of that in the rest of the United Kingdom.

Unemployment among teachers has increased by 39 per cent. over last year. There seems little hope of providing jobs for those in teacher training colleges who will come out this summer. It will be argued that the school population is falling. We saw that coming when we were in Government, and we took some action. We redistributed moneys to those education establishments that needed it most and ensured that the special education sector got its share of the resources.

We hope that the Government will take some notice of what we are saying. We took the lead on the Sports Council issue. We were told time and again that the Government would not think again about the Sports Council, that they had made up their mind, that it would go and that it was one of the quangos that had to be wound up. Labour Members took the lead, and they were joined by many others. We do not want to crow too much about that, but it proved to be a success.

We lost on the Agricultural Trust issue. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Kirkdale has asked the right hon. Gentleman to think again. We ask the Government to adopt the same spirit as they did on the Sports Council issue and to look again at some of the other matters that we have raised.

One thing has emerged from this debate. I hope that once and for all there will be an end to the illusion that there is a bipartisan agreement in respect of the Government's economic and social policies in Northern Ireland. There is no such agreement. We vigorously oppose their economic measures in the Province and call on them to come forward with a positive job strategy for Northern Ireland. That is the very least that they can do for the people of that strife-torn area before, inevitably, they give way to Labour to form the next Government. That may well be sooner rather than later. Whenever that day comes, I am sure that the people of Northern Ireland will rejoice.

6.47 pm

The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr. Adam Butler)

I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Pendry). I can confirm that there is no bipartisan agreement on economic policy, and I am delighted that that should be so.

Both the hon. Gentleman and his right hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Mr. Concannon) made great play of the success of Labour's economic strategy for Northern Ireland. I want to dispose of that myth. I do not doubt the honourable intentions of my right hon. Friend's predecessors, but the facts do not support the assertions that they made.

Unemployment more than doubled during the period in which Labour was in control of Northern Ireland's affairs. Unemployment got worse every year, even in 1978, when it was a little better in the rest of the United Kingdom, and there was no world recession at that time.

Our job promotion performance was bettered only in one year of Labour's term of office. In addition, there were the three lean Labour years between 1975 and 1977, when the level of job promotion was about two-thirds of what we have achieved.

Average industrial development expenditure during the five years of the Labour Administration was lower than the average under this Administration. If we look at the overall picture of expenditure and compare the last three years of the previous Administration with the first two years and next year's expenditure plans of the Conservative Administration, we find that the previous Administration spent less in the Province.

On top of a massive world recession Labour left us with gathering inflation and a series of problems on our plate, with which we have been trying to deal ever since.

I must agree—I think that the House will also agree—that, apart from those wild unsubstantiated assertions by the Opposition Front Bench, we have had some constructive and sensible remarks to consider. The general tone of the debate has been sensible—apart from the baseless and senseless allegation of the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) about the Northern Ireland Economic Council document, which he suggested Ministers had deliberately withheld from hon. Members. I refute that.

Rev. Ian Paisley

Where is it?

Mr. Butler

The distribution and circulation of papers from the Economic Council is a matter for that council. The House might like to know that, following a meeting of that council last Friday, revisions to this document had to be carried out on Monday morning. The council did its best to get copies to Northern Ireland Members and to Opposition spokesmen, as well as to Northern Ireland Ministers, but it seems that postal delays—possibly associated with St. Patrick's Day—caused some difficulties. I understand that some copies were received today at the last minute. However, the point that the hon. Gentleman wished to raise concerning that document—on agricultural expenditure—was well known to the House and was debated at some length on the Appropriation order—a debate in which he was not able to take part.

Agriculture has inevitably occupied much of our attention during the debate. To pick up the point about the rate of return on milk, I think that there must have been some confusion in our understanding of what was being said, or some confusion in the mind of the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde. The rate of return on milk is nowhere near two-thirds lower. The important figure is 1.5p per litre less on a price of 13p per litre—which is about 10 per cent. Nevertheless, it is an important matter because of the split in Northern Ireland between production for liquid milk and for manufactured products. We all realise that.

I shall not say more about the agricultural scene now because my right hon. Friend has made it clear that he will be discussing his conclusions next week with the Ulster Farmers Union, and I think that that was generally acceptable to hon. Members. It is because of the importance that the Government attach to agriculture in Northern Ireland that this matter is being dealt with by the Secretary of State himself.

We discussed the question of energy at length on the occasion of the Appropriation order debate, and again in exchanges at Question Time. My right hon. Friend has made it clear that we shall announce the details of how the scheme will work as soon as we can. The date on which Great Britain tariffs will change—1 April—draws near, and what will happen must be made clear to those in the Province.

Hon. Members have raised a number of subjects. I should particularly like to comment on assistance from the EEC. The issue was raised in a number of different ways. My hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mr. Biggs-Davison) asked about dumping. I understand that this is a matter for the EEC Commission, but it is up to the Government to ensure that reactions are as quick as they can be. My hon. Friend the Minister for Trade made an important statement in Brussels yesterday on this vital question of imports into Britain of man-made fibres. He said: Unless there is an early and effective moderation of United States exports to the United Kingdom in certain particularly sensitive sectors, the Commission should make it clear to the United States that consideration would have to be given to action in GATT or under the MFA. Those who understand what happens in textiles will realise the significance of those remarks. As I have said previously, in practice I believe that the decision of the Reagan Administration to decontrol oil prices will work its way through into man-made fibre prices and will be particularly helpful to us on that score.

The hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) mentioned claims that vast sums of money were available for the Province if only the Government would go out and get them.

Mr. Fitt

The Minister has heard those claims himself.

Mr. Butler

I have heard those claims. I am not responsible for them. It is claimed that there is a large fund of money readily available for Northern Ireland.

With regard to the integrated operations in Belfast, the Government are liaising with Belfast city council and other public bodies and we shall make a submission to Brussels in the near future. However, I emphasise again that the integrated operation is a concept that is still in the experimental stage. I believe that suggestions that £100 million or a similar sum is available are raising expectations quite unrealistically. I stress that no new funds have been earmarked for that integrated operation concept, so let us not chase that hare. Of course, if the scheme takes shape we must see what funds we can get, but there is no package of money available for this purpose.

Hon. Members mentioned various companies. I hope that they will excuse me if, in the few minutes that I have left, I do not deal with the matters that they raised, because I want to come to the main. Opposition charge against the Government—that we have no strategy for the Province. Having listened carefully to the right hon. Member for Mansfield I do not think that he has one, either. He started, very commendably, by saying that his strategy was designed to create jobs and to attract inward investment—so far, so good; I agreed with him up to that point—but after that I lost him, because the only formula that he gave was that in which so many of my right hon. and hon. Friends indulge—spend, spend and spend.

Let me repeat the positive strategy of the Government towards industry and commerce in the Province. It is a threefold strategy, aimed at supporting, first, established industry and allowing it to grow. But in a case such as that of Courtaulds of Carrickfergus, we have to judge whether there is the possibility of viability in the near future for a company of that sort. I shall study carefully the presentation that the hon. Member for Antrim, North brought to my officials on Monday. I was unable to see him then because his time could not coincide with mine. However, my understanding is that the management of that company decided to close the factory because there was no future viability for it—and that, surely, is the first and foremost test.

The second prong of the strategy is to encourage the starting of new businesses. The Budget will have a further welcome impact here. I hope particularly that full use will be made of the loan guarantee scheme. We shall be inviting the banks and the ICFC in Northern Ireland to participate, and I hope that a path will be trodden to their doors.

However, as I have said previously, even with the success that we have had so far, and which we hope we shall have with the establishment of new businesses in the future and in building up indigenous companies, we do not believe that this will be sufficient to overcome the size of the unemployment problem that we face, and therefore we must attract in companies from outside. It is highly questionable whether limitless money would do the trick.

At my door there is no queue of companies wanting to go to Northern Ireland. We cannot pick and choose. As hon. Members said, potential investors have the security situation in mind. Therefore, leaders and politicians in the Province have a duty to do their best to present the picture as it is and to remove from the minds of many observers—both in this country and overseas—an erroneous picture of the Province. They also have a duty to do their best to bring about political and social stability and a settled climate. That would help immensely. The House knows the size of the fund that is being put behind our industrial development strategy. I have already referred to it as exceeding that which the previous Administration were prepared to provide.

I refer next to the Budget. The increase in petrol costs will have an impact on many of those who travel to work and on many of the companies that have transport problems. However, industry has profited from the Budget. If the effects of stock relief and of the reduction in interest rates are taken into account, over £1,000 million will be put back into United Kingdom industry in a full year. Of course, the Province will benefit from that. In addition, the Province will benefit from the reduction in interest rates. Both in Northern Ireland and in Great Britain one of the problems in agriculture is the extent of the indebtedness of farmers, and they continually tell us about that. Like industry, they will benefit from the cut in interest rates.

We were asked whether we would provide a message of hope for Northern Ireland. As my right hon. Friend's firm policy on political and security problems bears fruit, there will be increasing hope. On the economic side, there is great hope when firms such as Dupont, with the recently announced investment of £45 million, Michelin, which has a £23 million re-equipment programme, and Tootal—all of which have experience of the Province, the quality of the labour force and what the Province has to offer them—decide to spend their money in that way. That must give us grounds for hope. Expectations should not be raised too high, but we now have two licences for drilling onshore and offshore. The drilling will be mainly for gas, but possibly for some oil. After proper scrutiny, my Department wasted no time in awarding the latest licence for operations, which will take place mainly in County Fermanagh.

In addition, there is hope, because a Conservative Government are in office. We have a positive policy—call it monetarism; call it what one will—and we have a Government who are not prepared to see past mistakes repeated through premature reflation of the economy or through a wild orgy of senseless spending. Such spending would have only one result, which the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) spelt out clearly during our debate on the Budget. Premature inflation would result only in hyperinflation, which would lead to increasing unemployment. Therefore, there is hope. We are pursuing in Northern Ireland a positive economic and industrial strategy that is backed by generous expenditure, and is aimed at producing new and lasting jobs. Therefore, I reject the charge of the Opposition, who called for the debate.

Mr. Alistair Goodlad (Northwich)

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Mr. Speaker

Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion be withdrawn?

Hon. Members

No.

Mr. Speaker

In that case, I shall put the Question.

Question put and negatived.