Employment and Unemployment: Statistics (Hansard, 14 May 1986)

§ Lord Hatch of Lusby
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.

§ The Secretary of State for Employment (Lord Young of Graffham)
My Lords, the number in the employed labour force increased by 990,000 in the United Kingdom between March 1983 and December 1985. That is progresss on new jobs unmatched by our European competitors. During that period, the seasonably adjusted total of unemployment, excluding school-leavers, rose by 309,000.

§ Lord Hatch of Lusby
My Lords, if I heard the noble Lord correctly, I do not believe that he has answered the three parts to the Question that I asked. Has the noble Lord given the House the increase in the labour force since 1983 as well as the figures for new employment and for unemployment?

§ Lord Young of Graffham
My Lords, I have given the increase in the labour force, which was 990,000. I have given the increase in unemployment, which is 309,000. But the increase in new employment is not a statistic that is normally kept, because new employment is a figure that can vary day by day.

§ Lord Hatch of Lusby
My Lords, the Minister has constantly stood at that Dispatch Box and boasted of the figures of new employment that he has created during his tenure of office. What is the figure that he uses when he is claiming that the Government are creating new employment?

§ Lord Young of Graffham
My Lords, I am proud to boast that I have never on behalf of this Government claimed credit for creating any new jobs by the Government. What we have always done is claim credit for creating the climate that will enable people to create jobs for themselves. That is the function of government.

§ Lord Stoddart of Swindon
My Lords, does the noble Lord not agree that, stripped of all the statistics and rhetoric, the figures for unemployed are appalling? They are disgraceful, they are ongoing and they are increasing. When will the noble Lord tell the House what measures the Government intend to take, and take soon, to reduce the total of unemployed? Has the noble Lord seen the TV-AM programme entitled "Divided Britain"? What does the noble Lord propose to do to remove the shocking regional imbalance between the unemployed in this country?

§ Lord Young of Graffham
My Lords, if I stripped the rhetoric from the noble Lord's question I should find little to answer. I believe that what the Government have done is self-evident. We see the United Kingdom creating jobs faster than any other country in Europe. We see, both since 1978 and since 1981, unemployment increasing in this country at a rate either less than or comparable to that in Europe. We see in this country a determined effort to deal with the evils of unemployment by the only route possible, which is the creation of new jobs. That was the purpose of the Question of the noble Lord, Lord Hatch of Lusby, and that is the Answer I gave him.

Lord Bruce of Donington
My Lords, perhaps the noble Lord the Minister will now give the figures required by the Question. Perhaps he will now state without any propaganda or equivocation what are the figures for new employment.

§ Lord Young of Graffham
My Lords, I can gladly state that since 1983 we have seen 1 million new jobs come into being. I can say also that I accept that since 1979 one can find a drop in the employed labour force of 1 million. And, of course, one has seen a drop in the employed labour force throughout the whole of Europe. What I cannot say is what proportion of the 23 million working population across this country are in new jobs. Do we mean new since 1st January, or new during this decade, or do we mean new during this century? What we have is a rapidly changing employed population. It is very difficult to define new jobs. We customarily define them by the increase in employment.

Lord Bruce of Donington
My Lords, then perhaps in future the noble Lord will leave new employment out of his answers to the questions that are addressed to him. In any event, there is a finite date set in the Question on the Order Paper; it mentions 1983. There is therefore no difficulty.

§ Lord Young of Graffham
My Lords, I always endeavour to answer the questions that are put. The Question put concerned, the numbers of the labour force in the United Kingdom, in new employment and in unemployment". 1140 I have given the increase in the number of jobs. I was asked whether I could say which of the 23 million jobs in this country could be classified as new. That is not a statistic that is kept by my department or, to my knowledge, by any department.

§ Lord Harmar-Nicholls
My Lords, would it not be constructive and positive sometimes to concentrate on employment as against unemployment? Is it not a fact that per 1,000 of the population there are more people in employment in Great Britain than in any other European country except Denmark?

§ Lord Young of Graffham
My Lords, I always find it helpful to concentrate on constructive aspects of the employment question. I do not always get the opportunity to do so in your Lordships' House. I hope very much that I shall have such an opportunity in future. In an endeavour to help in that regard, I remind all in your Lordships' House that of all the adult population of this country of employable age, no fewer than 65 per cent. are in paid employment. That compares with 60 per cent. and 59 per cent in France and Germany respectively.

§ The Countess of Mar
My Lords, perhaps I may ask the Minister how many of those 1 million jobs are full-time jobs for women and how many of them are part-time jobs for women.

§ Lord Young of Graffham
My Lords, we have had surveys that show women are looking very much for part-time jobs.

Noble Lords
Oh!

§ Lord Young of Graffham
My Lords, the jobs that we have are not jobs that have been created by anybody but are filled by those who wish to have part-time jobs. Before noble Lords look down on those who take part-time jobs—

Noble Lords
No!

§ Lord Young of Graffham
My Lords, such noble Lords should ask those people who fill them, because those jobs are very much wanted.

§ Lord Orr- Ewing
My Lords, will my noble friend say whether he has had any clear indication what Her Majesty's Opposition are going to do about unemployment?

Noble Lords
Yes!

§ Lord Orr-Ewing
My Lords, when may we expect facts and figures of a constructive nature about tackling this problem from the Opposition, who only criticise?

§ Lord Young of Graffham
My Lords, I am quite happy to answer for the Government but I am most unhappy to answer for the Opposition.

§ Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos
My Lords, is the noble Lord not aware that the policies of this party on the creation of new jobs is well known and clearly stated? 1141 Also, will the Minister tell the House what proportion of the new jobs he has stated are part-time? Is he aware that we welcome part-time jobs as being better than unemployment and the very high rate of unemployment that this Government have created since 1979? Will the Minister be good enough to clarify the position and to indicate clearly how many of the new jobs are part-time?

§ Lord Young of Graffham
My Lords, I shall be delighted to do so. I should of course prefer to have a Question on that particular point, but I shall arrange to have an answer placed in the Library.

§ Lord Hatch of Lusby
My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that from the figures he gave me originally, with an increase of nearly 1 million in the labour force and an increase in unemployment of more than 300,000 it would appear on a rough calculation that one in three of the new labour force has joined the ranks of the unemployed? When the Minister is talking about comparable figures, will he tell the House what other country among the industrial countries of Europe has a higher unemployment percentage figure than does this country under this Government?

§ Lord Young of Graffham
Yes, my Lords. Certainly Spain has a higher percentage unemployment figure. Ireland has, as have others. It depends how you define unemployment. It depends very much on the social systems which support unemployment and it depends very much on the size of the labour market itself. This is a complex matter which is not best served by having quick answers to questions. If the noble Lord wishes to ask that as a particular Question, he should do so.

§ Lord Diamond
My Lords, is that not a disgraceful answer when the figures have been published? Is it not unfortunate that the noble Lord the Minister seeks the whole time to avoid giving the true facts, never disclosing the number of part-time jobs? Is it not the case that figures have been published on European comparable bases, comparing like with like in all countries, and that they show that out of the 21 relevant countries, 18 have unemployment at a lower percentage than this country and only three—the three the noble Lord mentioned—have unemployment at a higher rate?

§ Lord Young of Graffham
My Lords, it is also true to say that United Kingdom civilian employment rose by 4.2 per cent. between 1983 and 1985, compared with rises of 1.5 per cent. in Japan, 1.3 per cent. in Italy, 0.9 per cent. in Germany and an absolute fall in France. Indeed, rises in United Kingdom employment contrast with a fall in employment in the rest of the European Community as a whole between 1983 and 1984. I have already said that we have one of the highest proportions of population in employment. I find the noble Lord's use of the word "disgraceful" to be unfortunate.

§ Baroness Seear
My Lords, does not the Minister agree that the figures he has given us depend entirely on what is the level of unemployment in a given country at the time at which that figure is measured?

§ Lord Young of Graffham
No, my Lords. The absolute figure is the level of employment. The level of unemployment is the difference between the number of people in employment and the number of people available for work, or the working population. We live in a world where, for example in France, the number of people available for work is shrinking. In France, they actually have rising unemployment in a reducing workforce. In the United Kingdom, we have rising unemployment in a fast increasing workforce. That is a very different matter indeed.