HC Deb 12 April 1983 vol 40 cc657-9
13. Mr. Foulkes

asked the Secretary of State for Employment what is the estimated total number of persons each month no longer registered as unemployed as a result of his change in the method of counting and the further measures announced in the Budget.

Mr. Gummer

Current monthly estimates are not made for the numbers of non-claimants on the old basis of registrations. I shall set out in the Official Report the detailed figures of the further measures announced in the Budget. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the effects of these measures on the unemployment count will be monitored as they occur and will be fully set out.

Mr. Foulkes

How many more fiddles does the Minister have up his sleeve? Who does he think he is kidding? Does he realise that the real level of unemployment—more than 4 million—is blackmailing many people into premature retirement and early poverty?

Mr. Gummer

The hon. Gentleman should not follow too closely the example set by his hon. Friend the Member for Flint, East (Mr. Jones) and make such extreme and outrageous attacks that are wildly outside the facts. He ought to accept that what we can do to help people who are unemployed is proper and that at no time have we hidden figures of any type. If he spent more time explaining that to his contituents, rather than making outrageous statements, he would help them considerably.

Mr. Renton

With regard to my hon Friend's original reply, will he and his Department consider publishing the number of people who have found jobs as a result of measures that were announced in the Budget? For example, would it not be helpful to know how many new jobs have been created by the business expansion scheme, by the youth training scheme and by job-sharing, and how many people were involved in community programmes?

Mr. Gummer

I shall certainly examine my hon. Friend's suggestion. He will agree that it does the nation no good to pretend that there is a cover-up when all the figures are on the table to be read.

Mr. Greville Janner

Do the additional measures that the Government intend to take to curb the awful level of unemployment really include the appointment of a Minister for the west midlands, which would be a purely cynical pre-election gambit? Will the Prime Minister appoint a Minister for the east midlands, where the problem is staggering, or even one for the Braunston estate in my constituency, where more than half of the people there are unemployed?

Mr. Gummer

Those who have heard the hon. and learned Gentleman's question will make their own judgment about who is electioneering.

Mr. Radice

Does the Minister realise that if he were to add to the Government's unemployment figure the difference of 150,000 accounted for by the change in the method of counting, the 80,000 or 90,000 60-year-olds who were removed by the Budget, the 400,000 that the labour force survey showed had not registered previously and the 360,000 on special measures, the real unemployment figure would be at least 4 million? Is it not time that the Government were a little honest about the unemployment figures?

Mr. Gummer

As the hon. Gentleman has suggested by that list that the Government do a good deal of double counting, my answer is no, that would not be a more accurate figure for the number of unemployed people. The Government have made every change absolutely clear in such a way that makes it perfectly possible for any hon. Member to understand the figures. If the hon. Gentleman thinks that that is a fiddle, he should examine some of the activities that went on under the Labour Government, which were not so clear.

Following are the figures: My right hon. and learned Friend in his Budget statement announced that some 90,000 men aged between 60 and 65 will, from April, no longer have to sign on at an unemployment benefit office to secure credits for national insurance contributions. Also, from June, some 42,000 men aged over 60 will qualify for the higher long-term rate as soon as they come on to supplementary benefit and will in effect be treated as if they had already reached retirement age. Two other measures were announced, the extensions of the job release scheme and enterprise allowances. Figures on these and other employment and training measures are published each month with the unemployment and vacancies press notice.