§ 12. Dr. Lynne JonesTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what assessment she has made of the impact of the Budget on unemployment. [3879]
§ Mr. ForthThe Budget of my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor built on the policies that have helped to achieve a fall in unemployment of more than 700,000 in the past three years.
§ Dr. JonesI welcome the fall in unemployment announced today, but the Minister will realise that it is falling at a rate of only 0.5 per cent. a month and that the Red Book assumes that it will remain at more than 2 million until the turn of the century. Will he explain how big cuts in the home energy efficiency scheme, housing, transport and other construction projects can possibly help in the fight against unemployment? Surely he will realise that the private finance initiative, which is supposed to take over, is viewed with dismay by the business community. It sees the PFI as an abrogation by the Government of their responsibility for infrastructure projects, which are needed in their own right and to create employment.
§ Mr. ForthI have been struggling to remember whether the hon. Lady was one of the Opposition Members who voted against the tax cuts in the Budget—I think that she was. It strikes me as rather astonishing that she should do that and then express such concern about the level of unemployment. Even she must know what reduces unemployment, and we have been successful in doing that—more successful than our continental partners, whose policies some Opposition Members wish to emulate. Our unemployment rate is lower than those of Germany, France, Italy and Spain, and there is considerable evidence that the policies that we have pursued over the past three or four years are attracting inward investment and creating the climate in which unemployment will continue to fall.
§ Sir Michael NeubertIs it not true that, as a proportion of the population of working age, this country has more 985 people in work and fewer people out of work than any other major country in Europe? On the day when a further reduction in unemployment has been followed by a further reduction in interest rates, is it not imperative, and in the best interests of the unemployed, that the Government continue on the course that they have so successfully set themselves?
§ Mr. ForthI am grateful to my hon. Friend for pointing out those pertinent facts—and they are even more pertinent as our record on, for example, women's employment is also one of the best in the European Union. I believe that what we are creating stands comparison excellently with the record of any other country in the European Union and of many beyond. That leads me to agree with my hon. Friend that we should stick firmly to the policies that we have pursued. If we do that, we can expect to see continued steady economic growth through 1996 and beyond.
§ Mr. MeacherAfter a Budget conspicuous for the total absence of any job-creation strategy, despite the fact that unemployment still stands at more than 2.25 million, will the Minister recognise that today's supposed fall in unemployment is a mirage, because Government figures also released today show that, far from rising, the number of people in employment has fallen by 22,000 over the past quarter? Does that not clearly show that people are disappearing from the unemployment count not because they are getting jobs but because they are dropping out of the labour market altogether? Is it not now clear that the so-called economic recovery is spluttering out and that, with a 0.25 per cent. cut in interest rates, there is no prospect either of staving off the risk of recession or of preventing a rise in unemployment this winter?
§ Mr. ForthThe hon. Gentleman, who must be the walking personification of old Labour, really should get a new script, because what he says simply will not do. Not only is it grotesquely inaccurate, but it completely ignores the fact that in the Budget we cut taxes for small companies, lowered tax bills for the self-employed, capped business rates, lowered the qualifying age for capital gains tax retirement relief and increased the VAT threshold—to name only a few of the measures immediately related to small businesses. The Government recognise that small firms will be the creators of jobs for the foreseeable future, and we shall help them. The Labour party, with its blind obsession with, for example, a statutory minimum wage, would crucify job creation rather than help it.
§ Mr. DoverDoes the Minister accept that not only one Budget but a series of good, responsible Budgets has reduced the unemployment rate in Chorley, in the middle of Lancashire, from 10 or 11 per cent. to 4.5 per cent.?
§ Mr. ForthMy hon. Friend is right, and I am glad that he has pointed out that each constituency up and down the country has seen the creation of real jobs. Our constituents are getting jobs, and they recognise what is going on. They also recognise the value of economic stability and inward investment, even if the Opposition do not.