§ 5. Dame Jill KnightTo ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many people in the west midlands have been placed in work by the Employment Service in the past 12 months.
§ Mr. David HuntA total of 143,600.
§ Dame Jill KnightMay I express to my right hon. Friend my great pleasure at hearing that news? Is it a reasonable supposition that the considerable number of 728 extra jobs coming on stream from Jaguar, Land-Rover, Flight's Travel, Ansell's and others would not have come about had Britain been a signatory to the social chapter?
§ Mr. HuntI agree with my hon. Friend.
At the Social Affairs Council today, my hon. Friend the Minister of State is fighting to ensure that extra burdens are not imposed on business. One of the reasons why there has been a record level of inward investment—my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Dame J. Knight) rightly paid tribute to the fact that Jaguar has decided site the manufacture of the new E-type in the region, and that Land-Rover and several others have made important announcements—which is so important for jobs is,of course, that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister refused to sign up to the social protocol.
§ Mr. GrocottWhat conclusion does the Secretary of State draw from the simple statistical truth—which can be confirmed by the experience of anyone who has lived in the west midlands for the past 30 years—that employment prospects, particularly for school leavers, were infinitely better under the Labour Governments of the 1960s and 1970s than they have been under the Tory Governments of the 1980s and 1990s?
§ Mr. HuntI do not accept that. My hon. Friend the Member for Edgbaston highlighted the number of new job opportunities which will arise in the west midlands in the coming year, and it is a fact that unemployment in the west midlands has fallen by just under 30,000 in the past 12 months. Although I gave the figure 143,600 in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Edgbaston, we are setting a target of 148,000 for the Employment Service to place in work during the next 12 months in the west midlands and I am confident that it will meet and beat that target.
§ Mr. Anthony CoombsWill my right hon. Friend confirm that one quarter of Japanese investment in this country goes to the west midlands? Is he also aware that the most recent west midlands business survey, by the university of Wolverhampton, showed that industrial confidence in the west midlands was at its best level ever? That is one reason why unemployment in my constituency has dropped by 10 per cent. in the past year alone. Does my right hon. Friend also agree that such a surge in confidence would be endangered by precisely the kind of social engineering on industry in which the Labour party seems to specialise?
§ Mr. HuntMy hon. Friend is right, and there are interesting statistics in that area. Some 70 Japanese companies have sought to base themselves in the west midlands region. That is a fine tribute to the work force in the west midlands. Those companies see this country as a centre of free enterprise, free trade and free markets. That is why we shall continue to win a record level of inward investment, which currently exceeds the levels of inward investment into all the other countries of the European Union put together.
§ Mr. Alex CarlileDoes the Secretary of State agree that the level of male unemployment in the west midlands remains alarmingly high? Is he conscious that industry there is being affected by the dumping of very cheap goods —for example, garden tools from the far east—which in the past have been made successfully in, and sold from, the west midlands?
§ Mr. HuntWhen one analyses present trends, one sees that although unemployment is unacceptably high in the west midlands and I constantly refer to that fact, it is on a firm downward trend throughout the country and in the west midlands. The downward trend in the country is now between 15,000 and 20,000, notwithstanding occasional monthly rises. I believe that that trend will continue, and that problems of the kind that the hon. and learned Gentleman mentioned will be more than outweighed by the constant flow of additional inward investment which will provide increasing job opportunities.