§ Motion made and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. David Hunt.]
12.43 am§ Mr. Peter Hardy (Rother Valley)I am sorry that the Adjournment debate was delayed while the Alliance indulged in the party games that it purports to disapprove of.
I secured a similar debate on 3 December 1981 because of my concern about unemployment in my constituency. At that time, there were 271 teenagers out of work. Unemployment reached 10 per cent. in Dinnington and 8 per cent. in the rest of the constituency. It was clear that the Conservative Government—elected 18 months earlier—were intent on cutting the central stimulus to our local economy. Later they changed course, but a good deal of damage had been done. I suppose that that parallels the present situation and the action taken by the Government in 1979, which was even more unhelpful and confusing.
Within weeks of the last general election, changes in regional policy were announced. The position since then makes the days of 1971 almost halcyon. Today, unemployment is more than twice as high as it was then. In the three employment areas, which do not cover the whole of my constituency, of Rotherham, Maltby and Dinnington, there are 14,829 people unemployed. At the last count, there were 120 vacancies. The position is appalling, because that figure of 14,000—or 16,000 in the constituency as a whole—does not include the hundreds of young people on Manpower Services Commission schemes or the many people who are not registered.
Rother Valley is a large constituency, covered by several employment areas. Unfortunately, the serious disparity in the Government's arrangement is now having a grievous effect in my areas. The needs and difficulties are such as to suggest that they should transcend the Government's commitment to maintaining scarcely responsible employment area boundaries. After the Conservative Government's initial errors, there was a change in arrangements in 1972. There must be change in the present arrangements soon. The need for that change is both urgent and essential.
In his reply, the Minister may refer to the increase in national and regional unemployment since the early 1970s. In the hard-hit areas of Rother Valley, the position in the late 1970s gave cause for some hope that the pace of increase would be below the national average. We were making comparative headway. However, the present situation is horrific. In December 1971, I referred to a deputation led by my former colleague and friend Brian O'Malley and I pressed for an improvement in area arrangements and boundaries. That was partly in response to a closure in the industrial area between Rotherham and Sheffield. Today, that area looks like an industrial desert, with a proliferation of "For Sale" boards bearing witness to a past life in which immense wealth was once created.
Unemployment has now reached a level of unanticipated obscenity, and that is another difference compared with 1971. Then, a Conservative Minister agreed to receive the deputation and listened to us courteously. However, the Minister has repeatedly and flatly refused to receive a deputation from my constituency. Although I regret the Alliance's antics, perhaps it is a pity that the Adjournment debate is not 324 taking place at a much later hour, with the Minister responsible for that refusal in attendance instead of the Under-Secretary of State.
A deputation was received in July 1979, when representatives of the planning committee of the Rotherham borough council and I presented arguments against Government policy. We were received courteously, but the Under-Secretary of State rejected our analysis. However, everything that we said would happen has happened and is happening. Our forecasts were accurate and they justify some action now to make up for the current deficiencies.
There are several different employment areas in my constituency. In the south and south-west, Dinnington covers 11 parishes with a population of 40,000 and an unemployment rate of 26.2 per cent. The South Yorkshire county council had to extract that figure, because the Department of Employment is remarkably secretive about such figures for travel-to-work areas.
Dinnington is now a non-assisted area and according to the Department's figures, the unemployment level is higher than that found in any special development area. It is a scandal that the Government should utterly ignore such need.
In the south-west lies another part of the Sheffield travel-to-work area—Woodhouse—where I estimate unemployment to be about 16 per cent. That is above the 12½ per cent. average of the Sheffield travel-to-work area because the further one moves from the city centre, the worse the prospects for employment become. Much of the central and northern areas lie within the Rotherham employment area. I accept that this is now a development area, and I welcome that. Unfortunately, a substantial proportion of the industrial sites that would serve that development area lie just outside it, and are thus disadvantaged. I have drawn the Department's attention to this great weakness on many occasions, but the response has been disdainful.
The major site is the industrial development area estate at Hellaby. I can throw a stone from that estate into the development area, yet the estate is denied grant. One firm of experienced local solicitors, Graham, Turney and Markhill, has been acting for clients wishing to see development in the Hellaby areas. There is a willing developer if grants were available, but the site desired is a few yards outside the development area, virtually on the boundary. The simple adjustment of those boundaries would bring some welcome jobs to our area, but that adjustment has been denied. Jobs are being forfeited to serve an area where unemployment is fractionally below 18 per cent. The Rotherham development area is the eleventh worst development area in Britain for unemployment.
The Hellaby estate lies within the Maltby employment area, which has the fourth highest unemployment of all the intermediate areas in Britain. That covers the north-eastern part of my constituency where unemployment is about 17 per cent. It is astonishing that we have this disparity, but the position is worse because in the north-east of my constituency, the parishes of Wentworth and Brompton Bierlow lie on the boundary of the Barnsley travel-to-work area. That is close to the Mexborough employment area which covers part of the Dearne Valley constituency. Across the whole of this area, the position is chronic. Even 325 a southern-oriented Government must recognise that they have a responsibility to an area facing such fearful problems.
I use the word "fearful" advisedly, for the future of this coalfield area is ominous. The collieries that have been the major employers have a limited life and we need now to be preparing a strategy for an alternative economic activity before any more collieries are exhausted. The coal industry has greatly reduced its work force. In all four districts of Yorkshire fewer than 55,000 people are employed by the coal board. Nevertheless, the coal board has sought contain retain juvenile employment in South Yorkshire to about 400 or 500 jobs a year.
This year, 3,000 boys sought apprenticeships. A few years ago, applications scarcely exceeded vacancies and a few years before that, the coal board found it difficult to recruit fully. However, an even greater loss of jobs has been experienced in steel. We have witnessed a steel employment slaughter even where the plants can and do rival their international competition. That applies in the public and the private sectors.
Our traditional employment structure has undergone brutal surgery in the past two or three years. We have the EEC funds to pay skilled, record-breaking steel workers to do cookery, horticulture and home decoration to ease the pangs of redundancy, yet the pangs are only slightly delayed. That contraction of our basic industry means that downstream companies and activities have been affected.
Many smaller firms have experienced great difficulties. I shall quote one as a typical example. Falcian Engineering (Dinnington) Limited is a company that has developed creditably and seen steady growth built on the dedication of its founder, Mr. George Doughty, and the skill of his team of workers. Unfortunately, he operates in the Dinnington area which has 26.2 per cent. unemployment and no aid. He has to compete with firms that are in the development areas, even though unemployment in those areas is only half of that in his own locality.
I spoke to him this morning. Once again, this successful man has had to lay off workers, and he does not like it. He told me that some of those workers were at school with him. Some are young men whom he has trained. It is ridiculous that a man with that go-ahead endeavour has been placed under intolerable strain.
Some time ago, I wrote to the Department about Mr. Doughty's experience. The present Secretary of State for Employment was the Minister in charge. His letter was insulting. Mr. Doughty expressed his view in pungent terms. Men like him must survive; perhaps they will survive; but neither the Government's policy nor our national financial system provide a sufficient support to sustain their desirable activity.
A question was asked in the House today about motivation in our schools. We have excellent schools in Rother Valley—I visit them regularly—but I wonder and worry about the long-term effect on the motivation that so concerned the Secretary of State for Education and Science today. How can we properly motivate our young people when a large proportion of them are denied opportunity when it is time for them to leave school?
There are 1,900 unemployed school leavers in my constituency—not 271 unemployed teenagers as we had 10 years ago. That is after the vigorous efforts of our local authority which provides 452 sponsored places. We also have the substantial contribution from excellent voluntary organisations such as the Rother Valley youth force,
326 ROMAC, Community Enterprise and Community Industry. All those organisations provide opportunity, but it is an opportunity that now relates to the excessive deterioration in our local economy. It is a deterioration because more than half our unemployed have been out of work for more than six months.
The Minister should understand that there is a growing anger and frustration, particularly in areas such as Maltby, where 1,550 unemployed were chasing 10 vacancies last week. In the Rotherham employment area, 11,450 unemployed were chasing 68 vacancies last month. It is grim enough to justify my call on the Minister to revise his arrangements in South Yorkshire. We need to end the obvious confusion which exists.
The Minister will recall that I wrote to him not very long ago about the possible development in Thurcroft which would have given us some jobs. I sought his help. The Minister kindly replied to tell me about the development area grant which would be available, but unfortunately the area in question lies outside the development area, so his letter was inappropriate. I suggested that he could resolve the confusion by removing these defective boundary arrangements. The Department needs to be more helpful.
In another case, I sought to assist an industrial development when slightly premature action was taken. That was justified by the terms of a Department of Employment press notice, but the strict rules were breached. The support which would have helped us in Rother Valley was forfeited.
We need to see an urgent change. The Minister may not have access to our local media, but I wish that he could read our local weekly newspapers, the Worksop Guardian, the South Yorkshire Times and the Rotherham and South Yorkshire Advertiser, close though they are to our local view, because their reports regularly present the sad reality of our anxiety. There has been closure after closure—an inexorable and brutal experience—which are regularly broadcast in BBC Radio Sheffield and Radio Hallam programmes. They are sometimes reported in the Rotherham Star and the Morning Telegraph. For three years, those reports have been bleak. It is time for the Government to accept that that waste and frustration can be little longer tolerated.
I suggest to the Minister that, in responding to my brief speech tonight, he pledges a change in policy that can help and the removal of the dangerous and damaging boundaries that cause anger. I do not wish him to offer platitudes, regrets or even good wishes. We need rather more than that. We need a justified hope that we shall very soon have many jobs before the consequences of the present position become as fearful as many of us in South Yorkshire have begun to believe possible.
§ The Under-Secretary of State for Industry (Mr. John MacGregor)I congratulate the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Hardy) not only on patiently enduring the pointless time-wasting of the SDP and the Liberal Party before we could get to this debate at a late hour but on securing a debate on a subject about which he has shown himself to be deeply concerned tonight and in the frequent correspondence that he has had for some years with my Department and the Department of Employment.
I assure the hon. Gentleman that I take seriously the many requests that are made to the Department, and 327 examine carefully the cases that are put. I hope that, if time permits, I can deal with the wider issues that he raised, but I wish to concentrate the bulk of my remarks on the points that he made about assisted area status, the way that it has developed and the effect that it has on his constituency. I am sorry that he still cannot accept the travel-to-work area principle, despite our previous explanations. He will know that assisted area status has been based on that principle by successive Governments for some time, including Governments of his political persuasion. I hope that I can go some way again tonight towards clarifying the position.
The hon. Gentleman referred to the fact that he has a large constituency. I sympathise with him, because I am in exactly the same position, with a large and scattered constituency, and I sometimes have difficulty in establishing the precise boundaries for employment. The travel-to-work areas in my constituency straddle local authority and health authority boundaries. I brought a map with me tonight to make sure that I fully understand the areas about which he talked. I recognise the difficulties in that there are parts of no fewer than five travel-to-work areas in his constituency—Maltby, Sheffield, Rotherham, Mexborough and Barnsley. But that illustrates the fact that travel-to-work areas are defined on the basis of patterns of commuting and not by reference to any administrative boundaries, be they county, district or parliamentary. They represent relatively self-contained labour markets. I was going to say that they are unlike parliamentary constituencies, but, as we all know, our constituencies vary greatly in size. These areas represent a different concept from the parliamentary constituency. The Sheffield travel-to-work area has a working population of nearly 300,000, Rotherham about 65,000 and Maltby barely 9,000. That must be borne in mind.
The hon. Gentleman argued that Dinnington is an unemployment black spot whose serious problems are not fully recognised. That is because, he says, the unemployment rates are based on travel-to-work areas and Dinnington's especially high unemployment is therefore hidden in the figures for the Sheffield travel-to-work area of which it forms part. He also argued that there should be changes in some aspects of the boundaries of the travel-to-work areas.
Perhaps I could first explain why a travel-to-work area is the smallest area for which the Department of Employment quotes unemployment rates. A travel-to-work area is intended to represent a relatively self-contained labour market where a significant majority—about 75 per cent.—of those who live in the area also work there and the same significant majority of those who work in the area also live there. As unemployment rates reflect an area's need for jobs, it follows that such rates can be quoted only in respect of relatively self-contained labour markets that broadly include work places, the geographical source of labour demand and homes, the source of labour supply. It is misleading to quote an unemployment rate for an area that is not a self-contained labour market, since it would either under or overstate the area's need for jobs.
Many travel-to-work areas, including those in completely non-assisted areas—I know of some in my part of the world—do have unemployment black spots.
328 However, people living in the black spots have access to jobs in the wider area. Thus, Dinnington residents have access to jobs in the Sheffield travel-to-work area.
Turning to the question whether it would be more appropriate for Dinnington to be part of the Rotherham travel-to-work area, I understand that the Department of Employment, which established the travel-to-work areas, is satisfied that Dinnington has closer links with Sheffield. During the last review of travel-to-work areas in 1978—I understand that there has been no major change in commuting patterns since—it was found that over half of the employed population living in Dinnington travelled outside the area to work. Therefore, Dinnington clearly cannot be considered as a self-contained labour market.
It was found that of the 52 per cent. of Dinnington residents who travel to work outside the area, 26 per cent. go to Sheffield and only 9 per cent. to Rotherham. People travel to work in other areas, but only relatively small numbers are involved. Hence it is clear that Dinnington's closest associations on travel-to-work patterns are with Sheffield. That was why Dinnington was included within the Sheffield travel-to-work area.
Travel-to-work area boundaries will be reviewed again when the results of the 1981 census are available. The hon. Gentleman may know that the 1971 census information was updated for the 1978 review by local staff of the Department of Employment after consultation with local interests to allow for any significant developments that may have inpinged upon its accuracy. To be fair and consistent in all parts of the country, we need to work on the basis of such factual evidence.
Having established that the assisted area map must be based on travel-to-work areas if it is to make economic sense, and also to ensure consistency around Britain—I assure the hon. Gentleman that there are many parts of Britain where small localities, much smaller than an employment office area or a travel-to-work area, could be established as black spots—may I explain the situation in relation to the travel-to-work areas in the hon. Gentleman's constituency? My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has to designate those areas for assistance having regard to certain criteria contained in the Industry Act 1972. Those are given as:
all the circumstances actual and expected, including the state of employment and unemployment, population changes, migration and the objectives of regional policies.Hence, although unemployment levels are important in determining an area's assisted area status, other factors must be taken into account, such as the quality of its communications to substantial market centres both at home and abroad via road, rail, sea and air; its geographical position relative to other travel-to-work areas; the Government's overall regional industrial policy; and the representations received on its behalf. In this case, the hon. Gentleman has never failed to keep the problems of his constituency in our minds when regional industrial policy is being considered.In terms of communications, the Rother Valley is in an excellent position. By road the M1 and M18-A1 provide a direct link both north and south and to the Humber; for rail travel, Doncaster is only a few miles away to provide swift access to markets the length of the country; and in the air I understand that a new service to Brussels has been introduced from the East Midlands airport at Castle Donnington, 40 minutes down the motorway. That should facilitate communications with the all-important markets 329 of Western Europe. Moreover, not only are road, rail and air communications good, but even on the water, work is progressing on the South Yorkshire navigation canal, which will provide further links with the Humber ports.
I make those points because I receive many deputations about assisted area status and many of them are about peripheral and remote areas that often have poor communications. In balancing what precise assisted area status is relevant for each travel-to-work area, one has to take those factors into account.
§ Mr. HardyI am puzzled that the Minister should say that he receives deputations. Why did his colleagues refuse to receive a deputation from my constituency?
§ Mr. MacGregorI receive a wide variety of deputations and representations, some where there are narrowly balanced issues, some from individual delegations. Often they are deputations in writing. All these factors are taken into account when we consider the individual arguments that are advanced.
As for the geographical position of Rother Valley, Maltby, Rotherham and Mexborough will become some of the most favourably positioned assisted areas in the country after August, and should therefore benefit more than most from the reduction in assisted area coverage. I have considered that particularly closely in the representations that the hon. Gentleman has made in the past and in preparation for tonight's debate.
Rotherham and Mexborough have benefited even more directly from the Government's regional industrial policy. The House will know that the Government undertook a thorough review of regional industrial policy and selective financial assistance as soon as we took office in 1979, with the aim of concentrating the assistance available on those parts of the country with the greatest need. From such studies as one can make of the effectiveness of regional policy in the past, it seems that it is most effective when concentrated on the areas of greatest need.
Although one result of the review was that the assisted area coverage of Great Britain should be reduced from 44 per cent. of the working population to 26 per cent., a small number of areas such as Rotherham and Mexborough were given more assistance in recognition of their problems. A large number of areas were downgraded. Rotherham and Mexborough became development areas and will continue to have that status after 1 August, and will accordingly benefit from the range of regional financial assistance, including regional development grant at 15 per cent. It is worth noting that since May 1979 about £7 million has been committed in such assistance to the two travel-to-work areas.
With the concentration of assisted area status the areas that continue to have development area status after 1 August will find that they are more favourably placed than they have been hitherto.
330 As a result of the 1979 review it was decided that Sheffield, which currently has intermediate area status, should become non-assisted on 1 August. Despite the problems in the coal and steel industries resulting from a fall in demand caused by the world recession, unemployment in the Sheffield travel-to-work area is still barely above the national average, which means that, judged on unemployment grounds alone, it does not have a case for retaining assisted area status.
I am concerned about Maltby's level of unemployment, which was one factor in the 1979 decision that it should retain its assisted area status, since when it has received £0.3 million in regional assistance. It does not, however, have the large numbers of unemployed of Mexborough or Rotherham, which is a factor that has to be taken into account, and I consider it to be correctly designated as an intermediate area.
Conferment of assisted area status is by no means the only way to improve an area's economic circumstances and employment prospects. This is highlighted by Maltby, where the National Coal Board has announced plans for a £130 million investment in the Maltby coalfield, which will be far more than any likely contribution by way of regional financial assistance, even at the highest levels of aid. It will ultimately bring about 600 jobs—
§ Mr. MacGregorIn considering assisted area status I have set out some of the considerations that are in our minds. We consider constantly the relative position of areas that are suffering from acutely rising levels of unemployment relative to others. We must take into account also the fact that selective financial assistance and regional development grants are only two of the many ways in which areas that are suffering from the need for economic restructuring can be assisted. If time had permitted I would have been able to explain that by means of the product and process development scheme, the small engineering firms investment scheme, small firms policy and other ways we are endeavouring to bring forward a battery of Government policies to aid areas such as the one represented by the hon. Gentleman, which I recognise are suffering extremely difficult times because of the world-wide recession. The hon. Gentleman referred to 1971 but took no account—
§ The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
§ Adjourned accordingly at thirteen minutes past One 0' clock.