Long-term Unemployment (Hansard, 7 February 1995)

§ 3. Mrs. Jane Kennedy
To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what are the latest available figures for 127 unemployed men in the Liverpool travel-to-work area who have either (a) been unemployed for more than five years or (b) never been employed at all.

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Phillip Oppenheim)
In October 1994, there were 5,658 men in the Liverpool travel-to-work area who had been claimant unemployed for five years or more. Information is not available on the employment history of unemployed claimants.

§ Mrs. Kennedy
That is an example of how figures are used in an attempt to disguise the seriousness of the problem facing Liverpool. The 1991 census return showed that 44 per cent. of men in the Liverpool district had either not worked for five years, or had not worked at all, but all we get from the Government are measures designed to disguise the fact that they massage the figures. When will the Minister bring forward measures to bring jobs to Liverpool? That is what the people whom I represent are interested in.

§ Mr. Oppenheim
I am interested that the hon. Lady says that the Government massage the figures. I have a press release from the TUC which calls the labour force survey on unemployment figures "fully reliable". However, the LFS unemployment total is almost exactly the same as the claimant count, which blows a hole in the Opposition's claim that the claimant count is fiddled.

§ Mr. John Marshall
Would my hon. Friend expect employment in Liverpool to benefit from the introduction of a national minimum wage or the adoption of a social chapter? Is it not absurd that those who complain about unemployment would introduce measures which would increase the level of unemployment?

§ Mr. Oppenheim
During the 1970s, unemployment in Liverpool rose faster than it has under this Government, and unemployment in the constituency of the hon. Member for Liverpool, Broadgreen (Mrs. Kennedy) has fallen by 10 per cent in the past year; long-term unemployment is less than half of its 1986 peak, while overall unemployment is more than 34 per cent. down on the 1986 peak. We now have a better record on jobs than the rest of the EC, in contrast to the situation in the 1970s when we were bottom of the EC league table on unemployment.