§ 5. Ms Dail Taylor (Stockton, South)What assessment he has made of the impact of his economic policies on levels of employment and unemployment in the north-east. [125828]
§ The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Gordon Brown)In the north-east, as in the rest of the United Kingdom, we have created a sound and credible platform of economic stability; we have also created the new deal and the working families tax credit, which will help us to attain our objective of high and stable levels of growth and employment. Since the election, employment in the north-east has risen by 20,000 and unemployment has fallen by 19,000. There are more than a million people in work in the north-east, the highest-ever figure.
§ Ms TaylorI thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. Has any consideration been given to extending the new deal as a training and employment programme? In my constituency, overall unemployment has dropped by 13 per cent.; youth unemployment by 54 per cent.; and long-term unemployment by 57 per cent. It has been without doubt a success. Will my right hon. Friend refute the statement by the shadow Chancellor that the new deal has been an expensive failure? It has been a cost-effective success in my constituency.
§ Mr. BrownThis is the difference between the two parties: we will extend the new deal to give young people, the long-term unemployed, single parents and others greater opportunities to get jobs. In that way, we are creating nearly a million jobs. The Conservative party would abolish the new deal and the working families tax credit. While it talks about full employment, it is removing the means by which we can achieve it.
It is very interesting that throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the shadow Chancellor never mentioned the words "full employment" as a commitment of the Conservative party. When he was at the Treasury and unemployment was rising, he said nothing about full employment. When he was Secretary of State for Employment, he said nothing about full employment. Even when the election was over and he was criticising the Conservative party for being harsh and uncaring, he said nothing about full employment. Now, as the next Conservative party leadership election comes nearer, he tells us that he supports full employment. If the Conservative party supports full employment, why is it trying to abolish the new deal, which is helping to create full employment?
§ Miss Anne McIntosh (Vale of York)Is not the Chancellor of the Exchequer ashamed that under his stewardship at the Treasury there have been closures, not least at Samsung in the constituency of his right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and a plant within the Vale of York, as well as Siemens in the north-east? When will he take measures to tackle the high level of the pound, the low level of the euro and record unemployment in manufacturing and farming?
§ Mr. BrownThe record closures happened under Conservative Governments: 1 million manufacturing jobs were lost in the early 1980s and another 1 million in the early 1990s. The Government are creating jobs—nearly 442 1 million of them. If the hon. Lady wants to help us to create jobs, she should tell the shadow Chancellor to support the new deal instead of trying to abandon it.
§ Mr. Jim Cousins (Newcastle upon Tyne, Central)May I draw to the Chancellor's attention a proposal by Sage, an information technology company on Tyneside, to create a new cluster of enterprises centred in the employment area just north of Newcastle, which would bring the benefits of employment to the whole of Tyne and Wear? May I also draw to his attention the proposals of the regional assembly of councils and the regional development agency, which will be published today and tomorrow? They are offering significant proposals to bring about in the north-east of England the self-sustaining growth that we have not had for many years. Will he respond to those proposals with more support and more investment through the comprehensive spending review?
§ Mr. BrownI am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising those points. I have visited Sage in Newcastle, and I can say that we shall announce more help in future for the regional development agencies, including One North-East, to allow them to adopt the kind of strategy that he mentioned. In the north-east, 40,000 more jobs have been created during the past year alone. I have examined the unemployment figures for each constituency: since the general election, there has been only one Conservative Member from the north-east, and youth unemployment in his constituency has fallen by 60 per cent. and long-term unemployment by 50 per cent. Jobs are up in the north-east, vacancies are up in the north-east, investment is up in the north-east—all of which the Conservatives would find out if ever they were up in the north-east.
§ Mr. David Heathcoat-Amory (Wells)Is the Chancellor aware that businesses in the north-east have expressed serious alarm about his decision to impose a new energy tax—the so-called climate change levy—from next April? Businesses have told the Chancellor and the Treasury that that new tax will threaten future investment and jobs. Why does the Chancellor ignore the voice of industry, which produces investment and jobs? Does he agree that the new energy tax is completely unnecessary as the environmental changes to meet our international commitment could be far more easily achieved by other means?
Why is the Chancellor imposing a new stealth tax that all businesses, of whatever size, will have to pay, but which will bear particularly heavily on the manufacturing industries of the north-east, which face international competition? Is the Chancellor aware that the Government's talk of partnership with industry is mere empty rhetoric if he is simultaneously imposing new burdens and taxes on the wealth-producing sectors of the economy?
§ Mr. BrownThe longer the right hon. Gentleman speaks, the less convincing he becomes. Let me remind him that the climate change levy originated in a proposal from a committee chaired by Lord Marshall, the president of the Confederation of British Industry. The proposal is revenue neutral for businesses and for manufacturing industry. There will be no revenue gain to the Treasury.
443 May I also remind the right hon. Gentleman that we have done something that the Conservative party never did, by cutting corporation tax to the lowest level in the industrialised countries? We have also cut small business tax to the same level. Given that unemployment is at 1.5 per cent. in the right hon. Gentleman's constituency—and in that of the shadow Chancellor—I should have thought that he would congratulate the Government on creating jobs. In my constituency, the Rosyth unemployed workers centre existed for 15 years under a Conservative Government, but will soon hold an emergency meeting to decide whether to disband because we have created jobs. If the Conservatives want to help us to create employment, they should start backing the new deal instead of attacking it.