HC Deb 22 May 1996 vol 278 cc279-81
7. Mr. Steen

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what measures she is taking to promote deregulation in respect of education and employment. [29098]

Mr. Forth

We will continue to resist the imposition of unnecessary burdens on employers, such as the social chapter and a national minimum wage, which have contributed to unemployment averaging 11 per cent. throughout the European Union.

Mr. Steen

Although the Secretary of State gets high marks in her end-of-term report for effort and achievement, I hope that she agrees that her performance on deregulation requires a little more attention. Only six paragraphs in a 250-page report on education and employment covered deregulation. Will my right hon. Friend have a word with all her Ministers and find new initiatives to help to support the Prime Minister's excellent initiative to deregulate faster, quicker and better?

Mr. Forth

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend's unremitting efforts to ensure that the Government's stated objective of deregulation is adhered to and thoroughly prosecuted in every Department. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State watches tirelessly over her team of Ministers to ensure that they share in that objective. I hope that my hon. Friend accepts that we have done rather well over the years in creating a deregulated labour market— which is reflected in our performance in employment and unemployment compared with our European partners in particular.

As to education, I suspect that we are bound in many ways to be a regulating Department—precisely because we are responsible for the well-being of so many young people in achieving a successful education. I could read out examples of some of the regulations that have been produced by my Department over the past year, but I shall not—I shall share them with my hon. Friend later. We make every reasonable effort to reduce regulation in education, but that must be balanced against our duty to protect standards and the well-being of pupils.

Mr. Corbett

I presume that the Minister and the Secretary of State are seeking to expand selective and divisive grammar school education under the dogmatic banner of deregulation. Is not it the case that if every town is to have a grammar school, there will be many more secondary modern schools? Is not it also the case that picking winners means plenty of losers as well"? Will the Minister confirm that those words came from Mr. Demitri Coryton, who chaired the Conservative Education Association?

Mr. Forth

Only the hon. Gentleman's twisted logic would have led him in the direction that he seeks to take the House. I suspect that he raised the matter in that way because he has hit upon one of the few areas— education—in which the Labour party seems to have any policy, and that is to do away with selection and choice. That is one of the few things of which we can be certain in respect of Labour's education policy—no selection and no choice. Everything else is either a pale shadow of Government policies or under review.

Mr. Sykes

When the Minister next goes to the Council of Ministers—if he does—will he try to have a Europewide ban imposed on the 48-hour week, which has been scientifically proven to destroy jobs in Europe?

Mr. Forth

My hon. Friend has hit on a truth that has been obvious to us for some time but which we have as yet been unable to persuade our EU partners to see. It is that if we arbitrarily interfere in the working of the labour market in the way my hon. Friend describes, the almost certain result will be a loss of jobs and competitiveness in the EU market as compared with our global competitors. We understand that; it is why we are enjoying a period of success in the creation of jobs and a reduction of unemployment. I fear that if our partners cannot and will not see that truth, they will drag themselves down competitively, and ultimately they will drag us down too.

Mr. Meacher

If the Minister thinks that deregulation has been so successful why, since 1980, for every job created in Britain 17 have been created in France and 52 in Germany, yet neither France nor Germany has a deregulated labour market and both have a national minimum wage? If deregulation has been such a success, why were more jobs created in Britain in the regulated 1970s than have been in the deregulated 1990s? Why are there now 1 million fewer jobs in Britain than there were the day the Prime Minister took office? Is it not obvious that deregulation is simply a passport to short-term, hire-and-fire job insecurity, whereas what is really needed is long-term investment and commitment?

Mr. Forth

Something that has puzzled me for the past few days has suddenly become clear. This is the same hon. Gentleman who was recently quoted as demanding the restoration of the old trade union powers of the 1970s—a period to which he now looks back with such nostalgia. He, one of the Labour party's prominent speakers on the subject, wants us to go back to the 1970s and all that they meant. Whereas I used to think that the Labour party had very few policies, I can now see that this is one area on which its policies are developing under the hon. Gentleman's influence.