§ Motion made and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Sainsbury.]
§ 11.4 pm
§ Mr. Robin Cook (Livingston)I am grateful for the opportunity to raise a matter of great concern to my constituents. My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) is unable to be here tonight, but he fully supports my anxiety and wishes to be associated with my remarks.
The origin of the debate lies in the severe rate of unemployment in West Lothian. In the Bathgate-Livingston travel-to-work area the unemployment rate was 21 per cent. at the last count. Several areas in that region have an even worse unemployment rate. On the Murrayfield estate in Blackburn for instance, unemployment is 38 per cent.
If British Leyland closes its plant at Bathgate unemployment in the travel-to-work area will rise to between 25 per cent. and 30 per cent. The precise figure does not matter. The social desolation at that level of unemployment would be so great that it would be pointless meticulously to measure the precise percentage. Within some pockets in the district, the level of unemployment would reach a figure that previously would have been unimaginable. In Blackburn, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow, it would exceed 40 per cent., as it would in Addiewell in my constituency. The West Lothian district would have the highest, densest area of unemployment anywhere in central Scotland, which already has an average level of unemployment that is far too bleak.
Although the closure of BL will make the unemployment position much worse, I stress that the case that I intend to advance does not rest on the assumption that the BL plant will close. I fully support the work of the shop stewards and work force to retain the plant. But even if we are successful in keeping every job at the plant, we already have, and will continue to have, a severe unemployment problem that demands a response from the Government. I shall not labour the point further because the severity of our job crisis, is accepted by the Government.
The Minister will appreciate that in our view a large part of the blame must rest with the Government for pursuing policies that have been so disastrous for the manufacturing and engineering industries that previously provided so many of the jobs that we have now lost. I have not come to the House tonight to apportion blame. The problem that we are experiencing is of such gravity that the unemployed expect more of us than the scoring of political points about who is to blame, but to the extent that the Government are to blame for the crisis, we can surely call upon them to respond positively to the constructive points that I shall now put.
My points follow closely the package of measures that have been developed by Lothian region and West Lothian district council, on which they are both agreed. I emphasise that those two local authorities do not always see eye to eye; One is Conservative-controlled and the other Labour-controlled. They have reached agreement on what the West Lothian district needs if it is to tackle the social dereliction of the unemployment problem that it now faces. 589 I do not expect the Minister to give a snap decision tonight, although I shall not reject such a snap decision if it is favourable. When he responds, I expect him to give the House an assurance that these matters will be considered not only sympathetically but urgently. We do not have two years until the closure of BL to take measures—the first voluntary redundancies have been called for this week.
The first measure, which is on the list approved by the two local authorities, is that the remainder of West Lothian district should be granted special development area status. The case for that is so overwhelming that it does not need to be expanded further. It is palpably the case that we have achieved a level of unemployment that demands that the area be given the top tier of status, whatever that might be when it emerges from the White Paper on regional assistance.
Immediately adjacent to the BL plant is an industrial estate, which is poorly developed, with large amounts of green field sites available for future development. It is plain nonsense that that site, which could provide the green field site for incoming industry, should not enjoy the top level of assisted area status so as to provide an opportunity to create jobs to replace those that are being destroyed down the road.
We need from the Government guidance and support in developing a public agency that can promote and develop the job opportunities in the area. It is especially important how the site of the BL plant is handled.
The present production sheds are not attractive to modern industry. Few modern concerns would want to come to those enormous hangars of sheds and use them for anything remotely resembling the mass assembly that has gone on in the motor vehicle industry. We need an agency to take over the site, preferably at a knockdown price, from British Leyland and to convert, manage and promote the buildings.
Again, that does not depend on BL closing its remaining operations. Any hon. Member who has gone round the site—I hope that many will do so on Saturday—will have been struck by the large amount of shed and factory space already standing empty on the site and available for creative use, if we had some form of public agency to handle the conversion.
Perhaps BASE—the Bathgate area support for enterprise—offers the vehicle for this task. The Government and BL have committed themselves to expanding their support and subsidy to BASE. But if BASE is to tackle this job, however excellent its work may have been, it will require a major leap in its resources, its funding and status. It will also require the support of other public agencies, notably the SDA, the Scottish Development Agency, which is one of the partners in BASE, because BASE will need a ladder of property which only the SDA can supply to meet the demand that it has already stimulated. BASE has now brought forward a number of entrepreneurs and redundant workers who are looking for premises, of which there is already a shortage in the area, and that shortage could be met only by a major provision of property by the SDA.
Thirdly, one of the other partners of BASE is, of course, British Leyland, which has a major social responsibility in the Bathgate area. For 20 years it has enjoyed the loyal support of, and had a good productive 590 relationship with, its work force. It cannot now, at the end of those 20 years, walk away from the social consequences of closure and of removing the jobs of that work force.
I am impressed by the fact that British Steel, wherever it has closed down a steel plant, has left behind local opportunities created by British Steel Industries Ltd. on the basis of an investment fund set up jointly by British Steel and the Government.
The consequence for Bathgate of the rundown of the BL plant from 6,000 to 2,000 workers, and now the possibility of the total closure of the plant, creates precisely the same social circumstances in the Bathgate area as we have witnessed in the steel towns and should call forth the same response in a fund, to which we have every right to expect BL to make a contribution, to attract and support new jobs to replace the jobs that are being destroyed.
Both Lothian region and West Lothian district council have called for a fund. Lothian region has put on such a fund the figure of £5 million. In all the circumstances, that is a most modest sum and far less than the Government will be shelling out in West Lothian in the coming year in unemployment benefit for the people whose jobs are being destroyed.
My fourth point lies fairly and squarely within the competence of central Government. If we are to succeed in developing the local economy to cope with the crisis we face, we are entitled to expect improvements to the infrastructure of the area, such as the transport network. Bathgate has potentially the great attraction and advantage of being centrally located and, therefore, in giving easy access to Edinburgh and Glasgow.
To do so, however, it must be plugged into the motorway system. There are plans on the drawing board, and there is reserve space on the ground, for a junction to join Bathgate to the M8. That junction should now go ahead as a matter of priority, as should the link up between the M8 and M9. Those measures would provide jobs in the short run in the area in construction, and in the long run would make it much more attractive to industry.
I also press the Minister to look for a way in which the Bathgate railway line can be reopened to passenger traffic. It has always struck me as a great planning failure that the Bathgate line, which runs through the Livingston new town, was closed to passenger traffic shortly before Livingston new town was designated. That railway line, if reopened to passenger traffic, would enable the work force of Bathgate and Livingston to seek jobs in Edinburgh much more readily, and would open up the Edinburgh jobs market to those who become unemployed in the Bathgate area.
Lastly, we must recognise—as I believe that the Government have indeed recognised—that any comprehensive solution to the jobs crisis must grapple with the fact that many members of the work force who are now threatened with redundancy, and many of those who are already unemployed, are more than 40 or 50 years old. When we analyse the length of time for which men in that age group in West Lothian have been unemployed, we find that half the unemployed men aged over 40 have been unemployed for over a year and a third for over two years. Plainly, unemployed men in that category will never work again unless there are special training schemes, and special projects that will provide work for them. The MSC and the other Government agencies have a clear role to play in making such provision.
591 Hitherto, I have rested my case for Government action in West Lothian on the need for attention to be addressed to the high unemployment levels there. No one would dispute the fact that unemployment is high and the need is great. However, the high current level of unemployment is creating an image of West Lothian as an unattractive and unrewarding place. That was brought home to me tonight when a television interviewer asked me whether West Lothian was not the white elephant of the Scottish economy. I cannot accept the contention that my constituents are in any way white elephants, or that the unemployment level is a ball and chain which will prevent West Lothian responding very adequately to any industrial opportunities that it may be offered.
West Lothian is an area of high potential as well as high need. It is in the centre of Scotland. It has a skilled work force and a long tradition of industrial work. It has an excellent further education college, and a local authority that is sensitive and responsive to the needs of industry. It contains areas of great beauty, from the sweep of the Pentland hills to the shore of the firth. On a day when the cooking stoves in the House of Commons have had to be turned off because the weather has been so hot, one might add that West Lothian does not suffer from the extremes of climate with which we have to cope in the south.
The area has great potential. That is demonstrated by the success of Livingston, which has attracted many high technology and high-value industries. If there is a "silicon glen" in Scotland, it is in the area of Livingston new town, and that will provide an enormous spin-off for any other industry that moves into the area.
If we are to unlock the great potential of the area, there must be a positive response from the Government to the crisis which the area now faces. I hope that the Minister will be able to respond positively.
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Allan Stewart)The hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) is to be congratulated on raising this important subject. I recognise and fully share his concern, and that of the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), about the situation in West Lothian and, in particular, the implications of the closure of Leyland Vehicles. As the hon. Gentleman will appreciate, I disagree with his remarks about Government policy, but he did not seek to make Government policy the subject of this debate.
We have already considered what action could be taken to help to regenerate the local economy. I have taken careful note of the specific measures that the hon. Gentleman has suggested tonight, and they will be the subject of discussions between my right hon. Friend and the local authorities. The hon. Gentleman has said, fairly, that he does not expect specific decisions to be announced tonight.
I do not wish to sound complacent or to minimise the difficulties which West Lothian faces. The present overall unemployment rate in the Bathgate travel-to-work area is 19.2 per cent. and, while it is always difficult to predict the effect of a closure on unemployment rates, that rate would increase by 3.5 percentage points if the Leyland Vehicles closure was to be implemented immediately—which, of course, it is not.
I accept the hon. Gentleman's point about the concentration of especially high levels of unemployment 592 in some areas. However, the area has strengths. and that brings me to the hon. Gentleman's fair point about Livingston. Livingston new town has an outstanding record in attracting especially microelectronic firms and related industries such as NEC Semiconductor, Burr-Brown and Shin-Etsu Handotai, the first silicon wafer plant in the United Kingdom. It recently made a £30 million investment that will mean 400 jobs by 1989. The new town has been an outstanding success. The Kirkton campus in Livingston is proving one of the most attractive and successful of the science parks. I do not apologise for reeling off a few statistics. This year, 64 new firms have decided to set up in Livingston, providing more than 900 new jobs. That is a major contribution to a net increase in employment of more than 1,000 jobs in one year.
It would be misleading, however, to suggest that activity in Livingston is restricted to electronics or even to manufacturing industry because, with the expansion of factory space, more than 44,000 sq. m. of offices have been built. The town provides employment in the service industry and white collar sector.
The key point for this debate, which was fairly made by the hon. Gentleman, is that this is not just Livingston's success story. Like other Scottish new towns, Livingston is a growth point. It has an important sub-regional role and does not stand in splendid isolation from the rest of West Lothian. A large proportion of its work force is drawn from nearby towns, including Bathgate, and many of Livingston's residents travel to work in neighbouring communities. The development corporation regards its broader role as supporting the economic development of the district.
In regard to the hon. Gentleman's point about the image of West Lothian, it is encouraging that at Bathgate yesterday, Heat and Control of San Francisco announced a major investment programme that will at least double its present factory space. It told the press:
We intend to put Bathgate on the map.The hon. Gentleman mentioned Bathgate area support for enterprise, or BASE, which I was delighted to be invited formally to launch last September. BASE is supported jointly by West Lothian district council, Lothian regional council, Leyland Vehicles and the Scottish Development Agency. The hon. Gentleman referred to the SDA's role. In addition to funding 25 per cent. of the cost of the initiative, the SDA, through its small business division, maintains close liaison with the director of BASE. The agency has agreed to provide factory units in the Bathgate area as and when BASE identifies demand. The SDA has now agreed to join Leyland Vehicles in extending support for BASE from three to five years. That was one of two decisions that Leyland Vehicles announced in relation to the area, the other being the consultancy study of which the hon. Gentleman will be aware.The hon. Gentleman referred to the possible expansion of BASE. The SDA is considering, in consultation with the director of BASE, how that initiative can be expanded to take on a wider remit. The hon. Gentleman will also be aware of the announcement of the Enterprise Fund for Youth this week. Bathgate is one of the three areas in Scotland that will benefit from it. I hope that it will contribute to the provision of employment for 16 to 25-year-olds who wish to set up on their own.
I shall deal specifically with the British Leyland plant. The most immediate task for the Scottish Office is to assist 593 the efforts of a new operator or operators who would be willing to take over the plant. It might be helpful to the House if I reported on the latest position on that aspect.
Officials of my Department have been in touch with Mr. Charles Nickerson of Marshall Ltd, who has expressed interest in taking over the BL engine building facilities, and further discussions are planned. Although the disposal of the plant is in the first instance a matter for negotiation between BL and the prospective purchaser or purchasers, my Department is prepared to do all that it can to assist a takeover.
In addition to pursuing the interest that has been expressed by Mr. Nickerson, Locate in Scotland teams at home and abroad are actively and urgently engaged in the effort to find an overseas buyer for the BL plant. Abroad, LIS in the United States, Europe and Japan is using its contacts in the international business community in an effort to promote the facility. At home, in the past few weeks a team has been completing the groundwork necessary for a professional mailshot campaign to overseas manufacturers.
LIS officials have had meetings with the management of Leyland Vehicles and have visited the Bathgate plant to see at first hand the facilities for sale and to learn of the company's attitude to any potential overseas buyer. The next step will be to write to major manufacturers worldwide with details of the BL facility, which the company is presently preparing, the West Lothian area in general, and the Government financial incentives that could be made available towards the purchase. Naturally, LIS stands ready to follow up immediately any interest that may emerge.
We recognise, however, that the task of finding new investment for the Bathgate facility is extremely difficult, in view of the decline in the worldwide market for trucks and existing capacity in the industry. But we are not defeatist, and interest in the plant from any quarter will be vigorously sought and pursued.
Nevertheless, it would be optimistic to think in terms of a complete takeover of the BL plant and work force, or to believe that the Leyland employees will necessarily find new jobs easily in the industries that are being attracted to Livingston. The hon. Member for Livingston fairly made a point about the high proportion of older workers in the Leyland work force.
My right hon. Friend and I are therefore arranging to see representatives of West Lothian district council and Lothian regional council as soon as possible to discuss their proposals for remedial action, as the hon. Gentleman has put them to the House tonight. In due course it would also be appropriate to include in discussions representatives from BASE, from Livingston Development Corporation and the Scottish Development Agency in the talks about what needs to be done.
The hon. Gentleman raised the question of special development area status for the Bathgate area. Livingston 594 has that status already. My hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department of Trade and Industry, has already told the hon. Member for Linlithgow that we are not unsympathetic to Bathgate's case. However, as my hon. Friend also said, we are shortly to review the assisted area map as a whole, when we shall be able to take a comprehensive view of the matter.
I think that the hon. Member for Livingston may accept that it would merely cause problems for potential investors if specific changes were made at this stage when, in a few months, there may be more major changes in the coverage of the map and of the boundaries of the travel-to-work areas on which the map is constructed. That is why we believe that it would be in everyone's interests if all the prospective changes to the map were made and announced at the same time. In taking our decisions we shall, of course, pay close regard not only to the points that the hon. Gentleman has made in this debate but also to the case made by West Lothian district council, which has already replied to the White Paper on regional industrial development.
The hon. Gentleman raised several issues. He fairly said that he would not expect decisions to be made on them tonight. I accept the importance of his point about retraining and the role of the Manpower Services Commission in relation to the older British Leyland workers. With regard to rail links and the reopening of the Bathgate line, it is a matter for British Rail. Lothian region could consider assisting it. That would be a matter for the region. I understand that the regional council and Livingston Development Corporation will assist BR to build a station at Livingston on the Edinburgh-Shotts line. That will improve communications for the area.
The hon. Gentleman also mentioned road links. Lothian is primarily responsible, as the highway authority. The region has recently completed the Bathgate-Armadale link on the M8–M9 link road. A start will be made this year on the A89 Starlaw roundabout link. That opens up the possibility of a direct link between Bathgate and the M8, a point made by the hon. Gentleman. I confirm that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State would be prepared to discuss road links between Bathgate and the M8, and between Bathgate and Livingston, with Lothian regional council.
West Lothian is an area with problems. The hon. Gentleman fairly said that it is also an area with successes and potential. It is essential that we build on those successes and that potential. There is a range of possibilities for action, which the hon. Gentleman suggested to the House. I assure him that they will be considered carefully and sympathetically, particularly at the meetings that we will have with West Lothian district council and Lothian regional council in the near future. After those meetings, we shall decide on the appropriate follow-up on the various suggestions.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at twenty-three minutes to Twelve o'clock.