HC Deb 18 January 1994 vol 235 c694
6. Mr. Battle

To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what is his estimate of the number of (a) male and (b) female part-time workers in Leeds, West.

The Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. David Hunt)

Up-to-date information is not available, but unemployment in the hon. Gentleman's constituency has decreased by 9 per cent. in the past year and by 21 per cent. since 1986.

Mr. Battle

Is the Minister aware that many of my constituents are being offered permanent temporary work, but on a "term-time only" basis? That applies to people who are offered work at the Leeds metropolitan university, in the hospitals, and increasingly in business. It means that people have to sign on and off the dole and be in and out of the benefit office three, four and five times a year to make up their incomes from social security. Is not that employment practice reducing people to casual hired hands reminiscent of the last century, and costing the economy dearly?

Mr. Hunt

The hon. Gentleman is living in the past.

First, I greatly regret that the hon. Gentleman did not see fit to welcome the decrease in unemployment in his constituency. Secondly, I ask him to examine the statistics, which show that the percentage of those employed in temporary and casual work has remained between 5 and 6 per cent. in the past 10 years. I agree that it has increased sharply in the rest of Europe. It has trebled in France. In Spain, mainly as a result of the statutory minimum wage and other restrictions, the share of temporary and casual work has increased in the past 10 years from 15.6 per cent. —bearing in mind that it is between 5 and 6 per cent. in this country—to 32 per cent. Will the hon. Gentleman reflect on that?