HC Deb 06 July 1982 vol 27 cc140-1
10. Mr. David Watkins

asked the Secretary of State for Employment what are the current numbers and percentage of unemployed persons in the Northern region.

Mr. Waddington

At 10 June the number of people registered as unemployed in the Northern region was 223,010 and the unemployment rate was 16.7 per cent.

Mr. Watkins

Is the Minister aware that, serious as those figures are, male unemployment in my constituency is now 33.3 per cent. and rising? How does that, together with the regional figures that he has just given, reflect the alleged improvement in the national economy about which the Government keep telling us?

Mr. Waddington

I fully appreciate the serious situation in Consett, but I think that Labour Members know that even there people are getting jobs. Indeed, 2,300 former BSC employees have found jobs or gone into training since the plant was closed. That is no mean achievement. Consett remains a special development area. Forty-five new small firms have been established since the steel closure. Other firms in the Consett travel-to-work area have expanded, creating 300 new jobs. So it is quite wrong to say that the situation is hopeless. Consett is recovering from a traumatic and terrible experience.

Mr. Dormand

Does the Minister agree that the three new towns in the Northern region have made a significant contribution in attracting new jobs to the North? In those circumstances, what possible justification can there be for the Secretary of State for the Environment—I realise that this is not the Minister's Department—winding up those three development corporations at the end of 1985? Will he undertake to make the strongest representations to his right hon. Friend to extend the life of those corporations for as long as there is a job need?

Mr. Waddington

I shall, of course, pass on the hon. Gentleman's comments to my right hon. Friend. However, I do not want the House to imagine from what the hon. Gentleman said that no aid is going to the Northern region. Far from it. Only the other day the hon. Gentleman heard that Teesside was to become a special development area.