§ 5. Mr. EnrightTo ask the Secretary of State for Employment what steps are being taken to co-ordinate the variety of initiatives to combat unemployment in areas of industrial decline.
§ Mr. Michael ForsythExamples include the introduction of new integrated regional offices and the creation of a single regeneration budget from 1 April this year.
§ Mr. EnrightI am grateful to the Minister for that reply. Does he agree that where local authorities, local chambers of commerce, trades councils and his own Department are already working well with good small initiatives, imposing on them English Estates, TECs and British Coal Enterprise Ltd. will do precisely what he does not advocate—make bureaucracy mushroom? Will he undertake to evaluate those initiatives to see whether they really work, or whether they are just providing jobs for the boys?
§ Mr. ForsythI agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is extremely important that the various agencies work together to ensure effective action with minimum bureaucracy. I know that the hon. Gentleman has been anxious to ensure that that happens in his constituency, where he is dealing with the problems of high unemployment and the fallout from the closure of pits. If he has any specific measures that he would like us to look at, I should be happy to consider them.
§ Mr. OppenheimIs my hon. Friend aware that although employment prospects in Amber Valley were devastated by pit closures, mainly in the 1970s, the area now has one of the lowest unemployment rates in Europe—certainly lower than Germany? The reason for that is mainly due to the success of new manufacturing businesses. Does not that illustrate that the best way to create sustainable jobs in the long term is not by subsidising unsustainable old industries, but by allowing better conditions for enterprise and better labour relations, which in themselves attract new jobs to the area?
§ Mr. ForsythI agree entirely. The way to secure future prosperity is by embracing change, not resisting it, and doing that, as my hon. Friend says, by using our skills to best effect and competitively in a global marketplace. Were we to embrace the policies of the Opposition in the European Community, we would shut the door to the jobs that will come from that inward investment. Because we have opted out of the social chapter, we have the opportunity that comes from being, if I may quote President Delors,
a paradise for inward investment".
§ Mr. BarronCan I bring the Minister back to the real world in relation to regeneration? The Government are about to announce a £3.75 million English Estates project for Templeborough in Rotherham, which I support. It is estimated that the project will create 175 jobs. Last year, 2,939 coal, engineering and steel jobs were lost in Rotherham and, in November, 260 jobs were lost at Templeborough steel plant. Only last week, 75 jobs were lost at Brinsworth strip mill. The loss of 400 jobs is being negotiated in United Engineering Steels in Sheffield and Rotherham. The regeneration project is a flea on a dog's back compared with the number of jobs that are being lost in that area. When will the Government meet those job needs, instead of proposing these developments, where less than 20 per cent. of jobs are replaced through regeneration?
§ Mr. ForsythWe shall start making progress when Opposition Members realise that jobs come from companies being competitive and from private enterprise being able to sell goods and services competitively. Opposition Members believe that the state can provide employment. Conservative Members believe that Government agencies can assist the market to operate effectively. Real jobs will come from free enterprise, which Opposition Members stand against.
§ Mr. SteenIs the Minister aware that in the economically declining fishing port of Brixham, in south Devon—the second-largest fishing port in the west country—the Employment Service agency wants to construct a new building on a prime site in the centre of the town to house both the paying out and job creation offices? It is prepared to pay over the odds, with Government money, and to push out private enterprise which wants to build on that site. Is not job creation and training a better use of public money than buying a prime site?
§ Mr. ForsythI am very much aware of the case that my hon. Friend mentioned because he has written to me about it and I have looked into the circumstances. I understand that the Employment Service has made no final decision on the site. I shall be happy to respond to my hon. Friend, once I have had a chance to discuss the matter further with the chief executive of the Employment Service, who is responsible for the decision.
The principle of integrating the work of the jobcentre and the payment of benefits on one site is a good one, which is for the convenience of people who use job centres and which—as the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) is indicating from a sedentary position—was supported by the Public Accounts Committee. It makes sense to proceed on a value-for-money basis with that policy, but I shall consider with interest the example in my hon. Friend's constituency.