§ 7. Mr. HainTo ask the Secretary of State for Employment what has been the percentage change in economically inactive adult males of working age since 1981.
§ Mr. Michael ForsythThere has been a 60 per cent. increase.
§ Mr. HainIs that not significant and does it not give an indication of the hidden level of unemployment? The economically inactive working age totals—the Department's own totals—show that more than 2.5 million adult men of working age, some of whom admittedly are disabled or sick or perhaps have taken early retirement, are being pushed off the official register by the Government's manipulation although they want to work. Why do the Government not have the investment policies to give them an opportunity to work? In Wales, for example, one in every three men is unemployed, by any measure, if we take the official totals and the economically inactive totals. That represents a grotesque waste of talents and abilities.
§ Mr. ForsythI am grateful, as I am sure my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security will be, for the hon. Gentleman's support for the reform of invalidity benefit. The hon. Gentleman will know that of that 60 per cent. increase in those who are economically inactive, two thirds of the people involved are registered as sick or long-term disabled. The biggest increase in recent years has been among students, as a result of the Government's determination to encourage more people to go into further and higher education. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for drawing attention to those figures.
§ Mr. DevlinIn areas such as mine, and in Wales, where older traditional industries were restructured in the early 1980s, the Government have taken several significant initiatives to try to bring down the level of male unemployment. Despite the difficulty in training older men to learn computing and similar skills, have not many of those measures in the north of England been strikingly effective?
§ Mr. ForsythI entirely agree with my hon. Friend. The great benefit of the job seeker's allowance, when it is introduced, is that it will ensure that every measure is used to encourage people to get back into the labour market, which will be good for them as individuals and for the economy as a whole.
§ Mr. MacShaneWill the Minister join me in congratulating the German Government, German employers and the German trade unions on ensuring that there are 600,000 young apprentices in their engineering and manufacturing industries? What hope can he give the 16 to 18-year-olds in Rotherham, who have pitifully few apprenticeships and traineeships in industry—the lowest number in the European Community?
§ Mr. ForsythI am astonished that Opposition Members should praise the German Government in the House, yet not praise my right hon. Friend for his initiative on modern apprenticeships in this country. I am also astonished that the hon. Gentleman did not find time in his question to praise the fall in unemployment in his own constituency.