Textiles (Hansard, 26 March 1991)

§ 12. Mr. Vaz
To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make a further statement on job losses in the textile industry.

Mr. Jackson
The number of employees in the textile industry fell by 14,000 or 7 per cent. in the year to January 1991.

§ Mr. Vaz
Do not those figures show the Minister that the industry is in deep crisis? Is he aware that the textile industry loses one job every 60 minutes because of the Government's policies? When will the Minister get off his backside and instead of watching over the destruction of the industry do something to protect it and provide jobs?

Mr. Jackson
Contrary to the hon. Gentleman's supposition, Governments do not provide jobs—the market does. The hon. Gentleman's picture of the performance of the textile industry, for which he claims to speak, is grotesquely wrong. He talks about a grave crisis, but in the year 1989–90 United Kingdom exports of clothing and textiles rose by 14 per cent., from £3.9 billion to £4.4 billion. That does not look to me like an industry in deep crisis.

§ Mr. Ashby
Will my hon. Friend accept that in north-west Leicestershire we have a textile industry and despite losing 6,000 jobs when the mines closed we now have 1,200 more jobs than we did before closure? Furthermore, our textile industry is not complaining about job losses because parts of it are extremely buoyant.

Mr. Jackson
It is an important industry, more than 400,000 people work in it, and it makes a great contribution to the national and international economy. My hon. Friend's emphasis, rather than that of the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Vaz), is correct.

§ Ms. Walley
If the Minister thinks that the textile industry is so important, will he speak to the Office of Fair Trading about the hostile bid being made for Tootal? Does he share my concern that, if that hostile bid goes through, upwards of 200 people in my constituency, working at Slimma in Tunstall could be made redundant because there are no employment guarantees?

Mr. Jackson
That is obviously a matter for the Department of Trade and Industry, but I shall make sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry has his attention drawn to the hon. Lady's question.