§ 9. Mr. Strawasked the Secretary of State for Employment what is the latest level of unemployment in (a) North-West England and (b) the United Kingdom.
§ Mr. WaddingtonAt 13 May, the numbers of people registered as unemployed in the North-West region and in the United Kingdom were 425,651 and 2,969,443, respectively.
§ Mr. StrawDoes the Minister have any evidence to contradict yesterday's assessment by the CBI that unemployment will continue to rise in Britain by at least 15,000 a month in manufacturing alone for the rest of the year, and will stay high throughout next year?
§ Mr. WaddingtonWe are following the practice of the Labour Government. We are not in the habit of making forecasts. I can tell the hon. Gentleman, however, that the prospect for continued recovery is there—short-time working is down, cost competitiveness in British industry is up, inflation has fallen below 10 per cent., the rate of increase in unemployment has slowed sharply—
§ Mr. Waddington—and interests rates are coming down. Those are all good signs. That is all good news.
§ Mr. Kenneth CarlisleDoes my hon. and learned Friend agree that in past recessions before unemployment has fallen the number of job vacancies has always risen? Can my hon. and learned Friend say anything about job vacancies that might give us cause for hope?
§ Mr. WaddingtonI have the figures here. The number of job vacancies has increased. However, I shall be unable to find the figures in time to give my hon. Friend the information that he wants. There is some room for encouragement, as there has been a modest increase in job vacancies.
§ Mr. RadiceHow many people have been unemployed for over a year?
§ Mr. WaddingtonAbout 990,000.
§ 10. Mr. Ashleyasked the Secretary of State for Employment what is the latest figure and percentage of unemployment.
§ Mr. TebbitAt 13 May the number of people registered as unemployed in the United Kingdom was 2,969,443 and the unemployment rate was 12.4 per cent.
§ Mr. AshleyIn the light of those disgraceful figures, will the Secretary of State give a guarantee that when the enormous bills for the Falklands operation have to be paid they will not be paid by the millions of unemployed people, through cuts in the special employment measures?
§ Mr. TebbitI see no cause at the moment to expect any cuts in the special employment measures already announced or those that the Government have in view, regardless of any possible consequences of the cost of the Falklands affair.
§ Mr. Bill WalkerDoes my right hon. Friend agree that it is difficult to compare exactly the United Kingdom unemployment figures, in numbers and percentages, with those of other manufacturing countries, because we do not have repatriated immigrant workers or national service?
§ Mr. TebbitMy hon. Friend is right. Those factors affect unemployment statistics in other countries. It is 10 clear, however, that unemployment trends over the past three months show that the United Kingdom has a better record than Belgium, the Netherlands, West Germany, the United States, France, Canada or Greece. Comparing the past three months against the same period a year ago, the figures are encouraging.
§ Mr. John GrantIn view of the continuing gravity of the figures, will the Secretary of State reject the latest proposals by Sir Derek Rayner and his "razor gang" for cuts in jobcentres and the relegation of jobcentres to back streets? Will the right hon. Gentleman also confirm that Sir Richard O'Brien, before he was so unceremoniously dumped by the Secretary of State, expressed his serious concern over that possibility?
§ Mr. TebbitSir Richard O'Brien was not unceremoniously dumped. That is the first point on which the hon. Gentleman is in error. Secondly, the Rayner report cannot sensibly be described as a razor job. It is a serious effort to improve the efficiency and to keep down the costs of the employment service of the Manpower Services Commission. I should have thought that all hon. Members would share that aim.
§ Mr. VarleyIs not the most terrifying aspect of this awful level of unemployment the long-term unemployment mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley)? I refer to those who have been without a job for 12 months or longer. That figure, as I believe the Secretary of State will admit, will go up even further over the next few months. What action does the right hon. Gentleman intend to take? Is he not aware of the horror and degradation felt by a man or woman who has been unable to get a job for more than 12 months? Why cannot the Secretary of State turn his attention to that aspect of the matter if he cannot do anything about the other? That is the most damaging aspect of unemployment. it is no good the Secretary of State coming to the House of Commons, as he has done on two occasions at Question Time, to try to placate the House by saying that the situation is getting better. 'What is happening is that the situation is getting worse, but more slowly.
§ Mr. TebbitI agree with the right hon. Gentleman that, now that we have made some progress through the youth training scheme—which I hope will be launched successfully next year—in dealing with the gravest problem of youth unemployment among school leavers, we should turn our attention more to the problems of the long-term unemployed. It was for that. reason that the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Budget speech offered to make available a further £150 million in order to bring another 100,000 people off the long-term unemployment register and into socially useful work. I am sorry that the initial reaction to the Chancellor's scheme was not more welcoming. I think, for example, of the trade unions. None the less, I hope that it will still be possible to take advantage of that money and to do something to ease the problem to which the right hon. Gentleman refers.
§ Mr. Kenneth LewisWill my right hon. Friend ignore the remarks of the hon. Member for Islington, Central (Mr. Grant)? Is he aware that his hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Lewis) and a number of other Conservative Members have argued for a long time 11 that the Manpower Services Commission has been putting far too much money into bricks and mortar in our high streets?
It did not need Sir Derek Rayner's report to make it clear that if the commission had put less money into those expensive buildings there would have been more money available for other things.
§ Mr. TebbitThat point has been made to me by many hon. Members and by many members of the public. They say that some of these job shops appear to be sited in needlessly expensive places. They do not have to compete with the high street banks and Marks & Spencer for the most expensive city centre sites.
§ Mr. Cyril SmithWhen the Secretary of State considers the problem of the long-term unemployed, that is to say, those who have been unemployed for a long time, will he take account of the financial difficulties that face those people as a consequence of their own thrift while they were working, especially in terms of loss of benefit because they have capital of more than £2,000? Is it really the policy of the Conservative Government that the long-term unemployed should be penalised for their thrift?
§ Mr. TebbitAs the hon. Gentleman knows, this is not, strictly speaking, a matter for me. It is, however, fair to say that many people make this point in the country at large. I must make the point that the way in which thrift is most cruelly penalised is through high levels of inflation. This is one of the reasons why the Government have put the issue of dealing with inflation at the top of our priority list.
§ Mr. SkinnerWhen the sunshine talk, as evidenced by the Under-Secretary of State in answering an earlier question, is ended, will the Secretary of State accept that the fact staring everyone, particularly the unemployed, in the face is that during the past three years of Tory Government 2 million jobs have gone? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is no indication from the Budget, from his words or from anywhere else, that more jobs will be forthcoming, not only for those now unemployed but for the 500,000 school leavers who will shortly be coming on to the market? Will the right hon. Gentleman accept that such sunshine talk means nothing to those school leavers unless he can say at the Dispatch Box that they will be given the opportunity of real jobs when they leave school?
§ Mr. TebbitIf the hon. Gentleman thinks back he will recollect that the increase in the percentage of unemployment during the first three years in office of this Government has been slightly less than that experienced in the first three years of the Labour Government. Just as my predecessors as Secretary of State in the Labour Government had to tell the hon. Gentleman that Governments cannot create jobs but that customers create jobs, so I must tell the hon. Gentleman exactly the same. The hon. Gentleman did not like it from his own Government. I know that he does not like it from mine.