Forestry (Hansard, 16 October 1996)

§ 6. Mr. Pawsey
To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many people are currently employed by his Department on forestry matters; and what was the figure in 1990. [38709]

§ Mr. Kynoch
The Forestry Commission currently employs 3,600 staff throughout Britain, compared with 4,800 in 1990.

§ Mr. Pawsey
I thank my hon. Friend for that helpful and reassuring reply. May I also add my congratulations to those of my hon. Friend the Member for Swindon (Mr. Coombs) to Scottish Office Ministers on their efforts in securing inward investment to Scotland? Can my hon. Friend explain, however, why forestry is the specific responsibility of his office?

§ Mr. Kynoch
It is because there is a large amount of forestry in Scotland—[Interruption.] My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland seems to be lapsing into my habit on previous questions from my hon. Friend by saying that perhaps at the Scottish Office we can see the wood for the trees.

§ Mr. Foulkes
That is a hard one to follow. Is the Minister aware that I warmly welcome the additional jobs in forestry to be created by the Egger chipboard factory proposed for my constituency and that I have personally thanked the officials from Locate in Scotland who helped to obtain that? Will the Minister be equally honest and frank about the unemployment figures? Is he aware that over the past three months the Labour party has carried out a door-to-door survey of every house in New Cumnock? The full detailed results, to be published tomorrow, show that the real level of unemployment in New Cumnock is well over twice the official statistics, and I am sure that the same is true throughout Scotland and the United Kingdom. Why do the Government not tell the truth about unemployment, just as I have been honest about Egger?

§ Mr. Kynoch
The hon. Gentleman gets very heated about these matters. Having visited that part of the world during the summer, I understand the difficulties when there is unemployment in an area, but that is all the more reason why we should concentrate effort on trying to bring new industry to the area. I welcome his comments regarding Egger. We are not quite there yet but, as the hon. Gentleman knows, the company has indicated that it wishes to build a new chipboard manufacturing plant at Barony, which is very good news for east Ayrshire. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Mr. Gallie), the hon. Gentleman should recognise that there have been other successes in his part of the world: we have brought the inward investment company AI(R) to Prestwick and we shall continue to make every effort to encourage further investment and to address the unemployment problems that I recognise exist in his area.