HC Deb 11 February 1985 vol 73 cc7-9
9. Mr. Barry Jones

asked the Secretary of State for Wales how many people are unemployed in (a) Clwyd and (b) Wales compared with 1979, as a total and as a percentage; and, of the total unemployed, how many are long-term unemployed.

Mr. Nicholas Edwards

On 10 January 1985 there were 25,105 unemployed claimants in Clwyd. A comparable claimant-based figure for 1979 is not available. The figure for registered unemployed in January 1979 was 13,569. For Wales as a whole, for the same dates, the figures on a claimant-basis calculation were 185,529 and 86,416 respectively, an increase of 114.7 per cent. The latest figures for the long-term unemployed relate to January 1985, when 75,697 had been unemployed in Wales for over one year.

Mr. Jones

In the light of those quite disparate figures, will the right hon. Gentleman seek an emergency jobs package from his Cabinet colleagues? Will not his tenure of office be remembered as terribly destructive to manufacturing industries in Wales? With more than one in five men in Wales jobless, and growing social and economic problems ensuing from those policies, is not the right hon. Gentleman's record the worst of any Secretary of State for Wales?

Mr. Edwards

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that we are spending about £2 billion on employment and special training measures, and that more than 41,000 people in Wales were covered by those measures at the end of December 1984. There is also a massive capital programme in Wales. I am glad to say that, as a result of the activities of the agencies and other Government initiatives, a large quantity of new investment is being made, much of it in Clwyd, which has been outstandingly successful in attracting new projects which are building their labour forces.

Sir Anthony Meyer

Is my right hon. Friend aware that the process of finding badly needed new jobs in Clwyd would have begun much earlier and been much more successful had it not been for pressure from both sides of the House to delay the closure of the steelworks at Shotton?

Mr. Edwards

The problems of the steel industry were undoubtedly magnified by the fact that essential decisions were not taken earlier. But hon. Members on both sides of the House must welcome the way in which the Welsh steel industry has faced competition during the past two or three years and made itself outstandingly successful.

Mr. Foot

In view of those terrible figures — the worst in Wales, at any rate since the 1930s—will the Secretary of State take into account the fact that he has added insult to grievous injury by telling me in a letter that the cut in regional aid will assist in creating employment? When will the cut have that beneficial effect, and what will be its precise effect in the areas deprived of special development status?

Mr. Edwards

We believe that the new regional scheme will be more beneficial and cost-effective than the previous scheme. There will be no cut in regional expenditure in Wales during the next couple of years; the reduction will come only after that. The area which the right hon. Gentleman represents retains the highest level of assistance under the new scheme and is in an especially good position to compete.

Mr. Grist

Does my right hon. Friend agree that major contributors to unemployment are political strikes and real pay rates increasing faster than productivity?

Mr. Edwards

Political strikes are undoubtedly especially damaging, although it must be said that any industrial dispute may threaten jobs. I hope that the unhappy dispute now taking place in Merthyr will be brought to an end, because we all hope that the new investment being committed for the Hoover plant there will go ahead and that the future of that plant will be safeguarded.

Mr. Rowlands

This is a civil question, and I hope that I shall receive a civil answer from the Secretary of State. When does he expect the figures for unemployment, in percentage and number terms, to return to the figures for May 1979?

Mr. Edwards

The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that no Minister in any Administration has ever made such a forecast. It would be foolish to do so.