Job Creation (Hansard, 20 March 1996)

§ 7. Mr. John Marshall
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment when she last met EU Employment Ministers to discuss job creation. [20129]

§ Mr. Forth
Employment issues are now frequently discussed at meetings of the European Union Social Affairs Council, which are attended by EU Employment Ministers. At these meetings, I and other UK Ministers argue consistently that the way to create jobs is through fostering an economic environment in which business can prosper and through the development of competitive, flexible and efficient labour markets.

§ Mr. Marshall
I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. When he next goes to Brussels, will he point out that Britain has become the enterprise centre of Europe because we have enjoyed a revolution in industrial relations and low corporate taxes and because of our opt-out from the anti-social chapter?

§ Mr. Forth
My hon. Friend is correct. We cannot point out often enough that the route taken by our partners on the continental mainland has demonstrated that the social chapter is a way to discourage enterprise and business and to lose jobs. The deregulatory route that we have chosen has demonstrated beyond all doubt and argument that we attract inward investment and provide jobs for the future, that our unemployment rate is falling and that our long-term and youth unemployment rates are lower than those of most of our competitors and partners in the European Union. Those facts speak for themselves.

§ Mr. Janner
Did the Minister discuss with colleagues in the European Union a problem that the Government have created—that even on the figures that they have built up over the years, with all the exclusions, there are vastly more people unemployed now than there were when they came into office?

§ Mr. Forth
That is of course true. Unemployment in Britain is higher than it was in the late 1970s, but the hon. and learned Gentleman seems to have forgotten the background. Perhaps he did not read his brief. Unemployment throughout Europe was lower in the late 1970s than it is now. A detailed comparison shows that we have been more successful since the late 1970s than, regrettably, has the rest of Europe. His selective use of figures is no use at all.

§ Mr. Elletson
Has my hon. Friend discussed job creation in Blackpool with other European Employment Ministers? Is he aware of the good news that Mecca is to expand its facilities on Talbot road, creating 80 new jobs, and that Whitbread is to set up a brand-new complex, creating 50 jobs, which will include a Travel Inn and a Charlie Chalk fun factory? Does not that confirm Blackpool's position as Europe's leading entertainment and leisure centre?

§ Mr. Forth
I must confess to my hon. Friend that Blackpool's role as a Mecca has not been recently discussed in Brussels but I undertake to ensure when I next go there that I weave into my remarks in the Council of Ministers some of the typically positive points that he has made. Time and again, we hear doom, gloom and negativism from the Opposition, even about their own constituencies, whereas Conservative Members recognise what is going on up and down the country, not least in Blackpool, where businesses are creating new jobs.

§ Mr. Meacher
It is not a selective use of figures to point out that there are today fewer people in employment than there were in 1979. If deregulated labour markets are working, why are there now, even after the most recent fall in unemployment, more than 1 million fewer people in jobs than on the day the Prime Minister took office? The Minister seems to think that flexible markets and casualisation are desirable. Is he aware that the rise in part-time jobs since 1979 has compensated for less than a quarter of the full-time jobs lost? Even that has been bought at the price of a massive rise in job insecurity. Does the Minister not have a little humility? Is he not ashamed of an employment record that has doubled unemployment and hugely boosted insecurity? We now have the Deputy Prime Minister hell-bent on removing all the employment rights from half the work force.

§ Mr. Forth
That was convoluted even by the hon. Gentleman's extraordinary standards. He obviously thinks that if he repeats the word "insecurity" often enough, he will scare people, presumably in the hope that that will gain votes for his party. His analysis is extraordinary.
The reality is that what causes insecurity is unemployment. Our job as a Government is to create an environment in which unemployment falls. When the hon. Gentleman makes comparisons, he completely neglects to point out that the countries that are his model—the countries that are running social democratic policies, which are a characteristic of Labour Members—have higher rates of unemployment than we have. Labour Members seem incapable of understanding the connection between their regulatory, interventionist policies and high unemployment. They seem incapable of understanding our deregulatory policies which have helped to create low and falling unemployment. I will repeat that point as often as I have to in the hope that, eventually, Labour Members will understand.