HC Deb 29 January 1997 vol 289 cc353-5
10. Mr. Corbett

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if she will make a statement on the change in the proportion of (a) men and (b) women at work who were employed on a part-time basis between (i) 1979 and 1990 and (ii) 1990 and 1996. [11735]

Mr. Paice

According to the work force in employment series, since 1979 the proportion of men working part time has increased from 6 to 11 per cent. and of women from 40 to 46 per cent. The labour force survey, which is internationally recognised, shows lower figures, but it did not start until 1984.

Mr. Corbett

Does not the near-doubling of the number of men working part time and often on short-term contracts explain the growing feeling of insecurity among millions of people outside these walls? Will the Minister confirm that 84 out of 100 men returning to work enter part-time rather than full-time jobs, and, while he is at it, will he examine the labour force survey and confirm that it shows—despite the Government's claims to the contrary—that unemployment among women is rising? We are given fiddled figures from a Government whom no one can trust.

Mr. Paice

Survey after survey, including the labour force survey, demonstrates that about 87 per cent. of those in part-time work wish to be in part-time work. A very small percentage of those would rather have—

Mr. Corbett

The Minister is wrong.

Mr. Paice

The hon. Gentleman quoted the labour force survey as a source of fact, but he now questions my reply, which is based on it. It is incorrect to mention the concepts of part-time jobs and job security in the same sentence, as the hon. Gentleman does. There has been a small increase in the number of part-time jobs, and the figures that I quoted show it. However, the increase does not relate to the level of job security.

The recently published British social attitude survey shows very little evidence of increasing job insecurity. More than 50 per cent. of people have been with the same employer for five years, and a third of employees have been with the same employer for more than 10 years. The fact is that the vast majority of people are in normal, stable jobs. Over the past quarter, the entire net increase in jobs created have been full-time jobs.

Sir Alan Haselhurst

Is it not the case that the only thing that creates jobs, be they part-time or full-time, is the success of British companies and businesses in earning wealth for this country? No amount of fiddling around with increased taxes on industry by one means or another will improve real opportunities for people in future.

Mr. Paice

I am sure that my hon. Friend agrees that increased taxes would have quite the opposite effect. Whatever the good intentions behind policies, they can often have a negative result. If one puts burdens on business, for whatever good reason, one will end up destroying jobs, and it is time that the Labour party recognised that.

Mr. Hain

Why do the Government not come clean about the fact that there has been a huge shift from well-paid, full-time jobs to badly paid, part-time jobs, and that that has hit total earnings? Combining full-time and part-time work, as the Library has done for me for the first time, one sees that, over the past three years, real median earnings have fallen by more than 1 per cent. If that is a Tory recovery, thank goodness we do not have a recession. We have high taxes, low wages and job insecurity. This is a Del Boy Tory recovery.

Mr. Paice

This country has more people at work than any other major European country. Our unemployment has fallen by 900,000 since the peak and is continuing to fall. There have been 600,000 new jobs in the economy since the recovery began. Those are the facts. The Opposition are concerned about earnings. The only way in which people will have their earnings increased is if the businesses they work for improve their productivity and profitability, and are therefore able to employ more people at higher wages.

Mr. Congdon

Does my hon. Friend agree that the significant thing about the UK economy is that we have falling unemployment—it has fallen by 1 million since its peak—whereas our major European partners have increasing unemployment? Is not the reason for that the fact that they have imposed the social costs on their economies that the Labour party wants to impose on this economy, which would destroy jobs in this country?

Mr. Paice

My hon. Friend refers to the burdens that would be put on business by the Labour party's social policies. As I said earlier, such policies may have a good intention; I do not deny that. They have, however, a deleterious effect on jobs. One has only to look at all the major economies in Europe which have higher unemployment and which also have in place most of the policies that Labour espouses to realise that. That might be a coincidence if it was true of just one country, but the fact is that all the major economies in Europe share the features of high social costs and much higher unemployment than us. That is no coincidence; it is a direct result of the policies that Labour would impose on Britain.