HC Deb 11 February 1992 vol 203 cc780-1
2. Mr. Janner

To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what is the current level of unemployment in the city of Leicester; and by what numbers and what percentage it changed in 1990.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Robert Jackson)

In December 1991, unemployment in the Leicester local authority district was 16,421 on the unadjusted basis. During the year to December 1990—the year about which the hon. and learned Gentleman asked—unemployment regrettably increased by 1,941, or 20 per cent.

Mr. Janner

Does the Minister recognise the terrible burden that increasing unemployment in the city of Leicester and elsewhere places on the people involved and their families? Some of the unemployed are young, some are old and many have never been unemployed in their life. Does the Minister accept the definition that recession is when someone else is out of work, depression is when one is out of work oneself, and the only hope of recovery will be when the Government are out of work?

Mr. Jackson

Of course we understand the difficult position in which unemployment places many people. The hon. and learned Gentleman made an epigram out of it. He picked up the word "depression". One of the psychological problems associated with unemployment is depression, and the range of measures that we have put in place to assist unemployed people can help with it. One example is job clubs. I visited one yesterday. They are successful and helpful devices to help people out of the isolation of unemployment. The fact is that 25 per cent. of people who sign on at our jobcentres leave the register within a month, 50 per cent. leave the register within three months and two thirds leave the register within six months; so there is a flow through the unemployment register.