Unemployment (Hansard, 18 October 1994)

§ 7. Mr. Canavan
To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what is the total number of unemployed people in the United Kingdom.

§ Mr. Portillo
In September, seasonally adjusted claimant unemployment stood at 2,566,000; down by 405,700 since December 1992.

§ Mr. Canavan
Does the Secretary of State realise that such an intolerable level of unemployment would be even worse if the Government adopted his crazy idea of scrapping regional development assistance? Given the thousands of jobs created through regional development assistance to companies such as Samsung and Nissan in the north-east and NEC and Digital Equipment in Scotland, will the Secretary of State publicly recant and abandon any idea of scrapping regional development assistance? Otherwise, he should change his job description to Secretary of State for Unemployment.

§ Mr. Portillo
I know that the hon. Gentleman has been busy composing early-day motions to undermine his Front Bench, but even so that is no excuse for what he has just said. I have never opposed regional selective assistance. [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes."] No I have not. In my job as Chief Secretary I did what all Chief Secretaries must do—I asked for it to be justified. I rejoice enormously at the 3,000 jobs that have come, through Samsung, to the north-east, but I know perfectly well that those jobs would not have come if Britain had signed up to the social chapter and we had had a minimum wage.

§ Sir Michael Neubert
Is not it clear that a major factor in our consistently improving employment prospects is our present excellent industrial relations within a framework of Conservative trade union law? Is not it equally clear that if we went back to the bad old days, as proposed by the Bill to be presented later this afternoon by the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn), that picture would quickly change for the worse?

§ Mr. Portillo
My hon. Friend is right. During the 1970s we lost 12.9 million working days a year on average. Last year we lost only one 25th of that—about 600,000 working days. Britain now has a marvellous reputation for industrial relations. I noticed that, at the Trades Union Congress conference, it was proposed that all the Government's industrial relations reforms should be repealed.