§ 5. Mr. WinnickTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what policies she intends to pursue in respect of those unemployed for 12 months or more. [37269]
§ The Minister of State, Department for Education and Employment (Mr. Eric Forth)We shall continue to pursue the policies that have seen long-term unemployment fall by more than a quarter since the start of 1994.
§ Mr. WinnickWhen will Ministers apologise for the fact that the number of people out of work for 12 months or more has more than doubled since April 1979? Does that figure not show that unemployment has increased substantially during the 17 years of Tory government? The Minister is nodding. How much more human misery is to be inflicted on the country before this wretched Government are turned out at the election?
§ Mr. ForthI can indeed confirm that unemployment is higher now than it was in 1979, as it is right across the European Union. The hon. Gentleman should cast his mind back to the 1970s, when everybody was doing well in terms of employment and unemployment. In the 1990s, life is tougher and more difficult. Compared with our European partners and competitors, we have served the employed and unemployed so much better because our policies have turned out to be more relevant to the needs 338 of the 1990s. Opposition Members persist in turning the clock back to the 1970s—not only in their faulty memories but in their yearnings for policies that have long since passed—but the result of putting such policies into effect would be a return to the conditions of the 1970s, which were so much worse than they are today.
§ Mr. Ian McCartneyAs part of the Government's programme of encouraging the unemployed to seek work, they have signed a contract with a company called Trinity Newspapers, which produces for distribution in jobcentres in England and Wales a magazine known as Jobsearch. Among other things, the magazine invites vulnerable unemployed men and women to take up prostitution as a business opportunity. My hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr. Hanson) has asked the Minister to withdraw that offensive magazine and its job advertisements, but was refused on the ground that the Department believes that the unemployed should have the widest possible access to job opportunities.
It is scandalous that such a magazine and such advertisements should have been distributed to vulnerable unemployed people. The Government's history of massaging the unemployment figures is wholly unacceptable. Will the Secretary of State today issue instructions for the withdrawal of the magazine and its accompanying advertisements, and initiate an inquiry into how it was ever distributed in the first place?
§ Mr. ForthBefore the hon. Gentleman massages himself into hysteria, I advise a little more calm. Of course I shall have a look at what he has described. If there is any substance to it, we shall see what can and should be done. [Interruption.] There is no point in pushing a piece of paper across the Table at me, because I do not know its provenance or the circumstances in which it came to be written. I prefer the approach of calm investigation and reflection to the hysterical outbursts that characterise the behaviour of Opposition Members.
We shall have a good look at what the hon. Gentleman has said and then, I have no doubt, we will take the appropriate action.