§ 2. Mr. HoltTo ask the Secretary of State for Employment whether he will make a statement on the calculation of unemployment rates in local travel-to-work areas.
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Patrick Nicholls)Since October 1989, my Department has published unemployment rates for travel-to-work areas both as a percentage of the work 141 force and as a percentage of the unemployed plus employees. The former provide comparability with the rates published at national and regional level and full details were given in the November edition of Employment Gazette.
§ Mr. HoltDoes my hon. Friend agree that these figures are a lot of mumbo-jumbo to most people and that travel-to-work areas should be dropped? Why not simply take constituencies, such as mine? One can find the answer for each ward. We have had a drop of 53.3 per cent. in unemployment since the peak in 1984. Does my hon. Friend agree that all that proves that while Communism is disappearing from eastern Europe, so Socialism is disappearing from north-east England?
§ Mr. NichollsI am sure that my hon. Friend will be the last person to accuse the Government of producing figures which are mumbo-jumbo. He is right that the figures show how successful the Government have been in reducing unemployment figures. My hon. Friend has personal experience of that in his constituency.
§ Mr. BattleDoes the Minister agree that because of the nature of the boundaries, travel-to-work areas disbar cities, such as Leeds which have pockets of high unemployment, from applying for European social fund moneys for inner-city projects? Is he prepared to relax the criteria for travel-to-work areas to ensure that, for example, women's training projects can be supported by the social fund?
§ Mr. NichollsI accept entirely that there is no ideal way of identifying a particular travel-to-work area, but there must be some basis on which that is done and the present system is probably the best device in the circumstances.