HC Deb 20 May 1986 vol 98 cc168-9
7. Mr. Thurnham

asked the Paymaster General if he will take steps to simplify the leaflets coming out of his Department.

Mr. Trippier

The first elements of the Department of Employment's simplification campaign were announced on 22 April. These consisted of a simple guide to employment legislation and an employment form.

Mr. Thurnham

I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. Can he do more to help potential employers, who are deterred by over-complicated leaflets that make them feel that taking on employees just means taking on many heavy legal responsibilities?

Mr. Trippier

It is because I accept that employers believe that by taking on more employees they are taking on heavy legal responsibilities and that the forms issued by the Department are too complicated that I announced the simplification drive. A pilot scheme is in operation in the Thames Valley area and in the north-west region. If we are successful in simplifying the message that we are trying to convey, the exercise will be replicated nationwide.

Mr. Wainwright

Will the Minister make some of his leaflets more meaningful and helpful to the growing army of long-term unemployed, by including in them new policies that offer retraining? Many of those people find that their job skills erode very quickly.

Mr. Trippier

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me the opportunity to say that we only recently issued a new booklet entitled, "Action for Jobs", which has met with widespread approval, I understand, on both sides of the House. There is now increased awareness about what training schemes are available. Perhaps all that was long overdue, but it was held up as a result of the new responsibilities that the Department assumed in September 1985.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton

Will my hon. Friend arrange for his Department to produce a simple leaflet to explain to one of my constituents, a talented young lady who has been accepted at Harper Adams on a sandwich course, how she might obtain employment on a farm where she needs to fulfil at least two years of the four-year course, bearing in mind that farmers are more inclined to employ young people on youth training schemes than the more qualified young people who are undertaking a course at Harper Adams agricultural college?

Mr. Trippier

I have every sympathy with the point raised by my hon. Friend. I should like to look in some detail at the point that he has drawn to my attention. I am sure he will forgive me if I say that I do not intend to produce a new leaflet. My task, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Thurnham) suggested, is to cut the number down.

Mr. Skinner

Is the Minister aware that they would not need any leaflets, simplifed or otherwise, if they used all their time and energy to create jobs and get down the mass unemployment total, which is well over 4 million? Why does the Minister not do that?

Mr. Trippier

It is interesting that the hon. Gentleman should use the term "they", when he has not made it clear whether he means the Government or the employers. The difference between the hon. Gentleman and myself is that he thinks that the Government create jobs, whereas all my hon. Friends know that employers create jobs. The purpose of producing simplified material is to make it easier for them to create wealth and work.

Mr. Adley

As leaflets help to create jobs and provide information, can my hon. Friend, who has responsibility for tourism, produce a leflet which shows that the number of American citizens killed in Europe this year is five, and that the number of American citizens killed in New York city so far this year is 464? Will he then send large quantities to the American embassy? If that does not work, will he concentrate, not on the United States, but on markets in the far east, whose tourists seem to be less fickle in their habits?

Mr. Trippier

I am glad that my hon. Friend had the opportunity to make that valid point. Again, I am sure that he will forgive me if I resist his suggestion that we should produce yet another leaflet.

Mr. Evans

Will the Minister instruct his Department to produce a simple and straightforward leaflet making it clear that Employment Ministers are totally opposed to the monstrous proposition that the unemployed should have their mortgage relief reduced by 50 per cent.?

Mr. Trippier

As the hon. Gentleman knows, that is the responsibility of the Department of Health and Social Security. I am sure that the Minister in that Department will look at what he has said with interest. However, I would have thought that there is already widespread awareness of the point that the hon. Gentleman is seeking to make.

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