HL Deb 18 October 1984 vol 455 cc1085-7

3.45 p.m.

Lord Dean of Beswick

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.

The Question was as follows:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have any further measures in hand to reduce the present high and increasing levels of unemployment.

The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Lord Belstead)

My Lords, the Government currently operate a range of measures to combat unemployment and provide training. At the end of August almost 670,000 people were being helped in this way. The schemes are kept under review and some changes were announced before the Recess, notably an increase in the allowance paid to young people on the Youth Training Scheme. Any further changes which might arise from review of the schemes will be announced in the usual way.

Lord Dean of Beswick

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that reply and for the information about what I would regard as the further minor measures that are being taken to advance the training of young people. But is the Minister not aware that unless the Government change quite forcefully their present financial and economic policy the training of these young people will be a waste of time; and that only such a change of direction by the Government in their present policies can alter the present appalling situation and deterioration in job prospects?

Lord Belstead

My Lords, I am surprised that the noble Lord refers to the Government's present financial policies. I think the noble Lord and the Government would agree that the last unemployment figures were very disappointing; but in regard to our policies it is no mean achievement to have got inflation down and investment and productivity up; nor is abolition of the national insurance surcharge and the raising of tax thresholds.

The noble Lord suggests that changes which have been made were minor measures. Perhaps my reply was a little less forthcoming than it should have been. The fact of the matter is that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Employment has announced within the last couple of months that 1,000 places a week will now be funded on the Enterprise Allowance Scheme, that the community programme is to be stepped up, and that he intends to double the number of places for adult training. I hope the noble Lord will think that those are significant changes.

Lord Dean of Beswick

My Lords, I am grateful for that information, but would the Minister not agree that really, at the best, that is in some respects the provision of more seed corn for our industry? How does he expect that additional seed corn to flourish in an industrial desert that is substantially the creation of the Government's present policies?

Lord Belstead

My Lords, indeed the noble Lord has fastened on to the point that, by concentrating more and more on the training aspect of these schemes, we are endeavouring to provide people who will be in permanent jobs for the future. At the risk of repeating myself, I would remind the noble Lord that inflation in the last two years was the lowest for 16 years and is now well below the European Community average. Investment in manufacturing rose by 94½ per cent. in the first half of this year. Manufacturing output, which fell during the time between 1974 and 1979, is now up; and the result of all that is that there are new jobs being created in new technology. What we have got to see is that we try to avoid the loss of jobs, which I know at the moment is outbalancing the new ones.

Viscount Trenchard

My Lords, would my noble friend agree that, far from Her Majesty's present Administration causing the current levels of unemployment, these were in fact caused in the years between 1960 and 1978 when we lost half our share of world markets and would have suffered appalling unemployment but for one fact—that this was an era when the world economy, the free world's economy, grew by double? We ended up in the late seventies with half the share of world markets, but the world markets were double. Would my noble friend agree that it was not until the recession came that the malaise caused in those years, under both Governments, really came to light?

Lord Belstead

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend; I agree. Surely the crucial point is how competitive we are in selling our goods and services around the world, and it is to that end that we are bending all our efforts.

Lord Hatch of Lusby

My Lords, will the noble Lord confirm that in the second quarter of this year the increase in the number of people in employment was exactly one quarter of the increase in employment in the last quarter of last year? Will he confirm that the figures were roughly 28,000 and 112,000? If the noble Lord confirms those figures, how do they support the Government's claim that there has been a recovery in this country, and how do they support the noble Lord's claim that new people are being put to work?

Lord Belstead

My Lords, so far as figures are concerned, the noble Lord will forgive me if I do not follow him down his particular set of statistics. The statistics which I have show that there are about a quarter of a million more people in work than there were a year ago. Those are the statistics which have been given by my noble friends in answer to Questions in the last few months. The noble Lord talks about people going into jobs. I must confess that, before the noble Lord, Lord Dean, tabled his Question and I did some work on the matter, I did not realise that every working day 25,000 people in this country go into jobs. What we must try to do is to make sure that that enormous number of people going into new jobs is not outbalanced by those who are losing their jobs. We on this side of the House believe that there is only one way in which to do that, which is to try to build competitively for the future; that is what we are going to continue to try to do.

Lord Leatherland

My Lords, in order that we may appreciate the exact position, I should like to ask the noble Lord how many people are registered as unemployed at present and also how many have exhausted their unemployment benefit and are dependent upon some form of public assistance?

Lord Belstead

My Lords, the press notice issued by the Department of Employment on 4th October shows that the unadjusted figures give the total number unemployed as 3,284,000. I am afraid that I do not have with me the answer to the other question which the noble Lord has asked, but I shall write to him.

Lord Hatch of Lusby

My Lords, will the noble Lord be so kind as to answer my question? Will he confirm—not from my figures, but from Government figures—that the increase in the number of people employed in this country in the second quarter of this year was one quarter of the increase in the last quarter of 1983?

Lord Belstead

My Lords, I do not have that figure with me. I am rather more interested in the total number of people who are in employment compared with the total number of people who were in employment a year ago; I gave the noble Lord that figure.