Long-term Unemployment (Hansard, 13 April 1988)

§ The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Lord Young of Graffham)
My Lords, unemployment figures are analysed by duration quarterly, and are not available for May. In April 1979 the number of unemployed registrants in the United Kingdom who had been unemployed for one year or more was 366,700. The numbers of unemployed claimants who had been unemployed for one year or more on 9th April 1987 and 14th January 1988—which is the latest available date—were 1,295,100 and 1,100,600 respectively. Long-term unemployment has fallen by a record 234,000 over the last 12 months.

§ Lord Dormand of Easington
My Lords, is the Minister aware that those disgraceful figures that the Secretary of State has just announced are the most serious condemnation of the Government's economic policies? Does he recall that one of his noble colleagues sitting on the Bench with him in a recent answer to a question concerning long-term unemployment said that it took a little while for government programmes to take effect. Those were his words. As the Government have now had absolute power for almost nine years, and as the figures that the Secretary of State has just given are six times the number of those in 1979, when the Government assumed office, will he give an estimate of when we are likely to return to the long-term unemployed figures of 1979?

§ Lord Young of Graffham
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, although I fail to share his acceptance that a reduction of long-term unemployment by nearly a quarter of a million in the last 12 months should be thought in any way disgraceful. Nor do I live in such an insulated world as the noble Lord, Lord Dormand of Easington, who has not noticed what has happened throughout Europe during the course of this decade. He also fails today to notice the fact that unemployment is rising in every country in Europe while it is falling sharply here. We are no island. We live in the real world. We have to deal with conditions as they are—and this Government certainly are dealing with those conditions.

§ Lord Elliott of Morpeth
My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the generally most splendid figures that he has quoted include the information that, in the northern region—which has certainly known its unemployment problems—the number of those unemployed for six months or more has fallen by 23,000 within the last 12 months, and that every single economic indicator in the region suggests that the fall will continue?

§ Lord Young of Graffham
My Lords, the really satisfying statistics over the last 12 months show that the North-East and the North-West are leading the return to normality; and that unemployment is falling fastest in those regions.

§ Lord Mason of Barnsley
My Lords, is the Secretary of State aware that in Yorkshire and Humberside in 1979 there were 88,000 long-term unemployed? Today there are 111,000—an increase of 26 per cent. In the Barnsley Travel to Work Area in 1979 there were 4,000. Today the figure is 6,700—an increase of 63 per cent. While he and the Government may boast about declining unemployment generally, they certainly have not tackled the long-term unemployment problem. In the areas that I have mentioned it is on the increase, not the decrease. There are coalfield communities that have suffered at the hands of this Government. Can the Minister state specifically what he will do about it?

§ Lord Young of Graffham
My Lords, once again I fear that I have to disagree with the noble Lord. I 1065 have little doubt that the coalfields have suffered, but I doubt greatly whether they have suffered at the hands of this Government rather than those of some trade union leaders.

§ Lord Orr-Ewing
My Lords, will my noble friend say how the unemployed figures compare with our neighbours in western Europe with regard to young people? Are they now getting jobs as a result of government measures in recent times?

§ Lord Young of Graffham
My Lords, all of us in your Lordships' House regret unemployment. But I think that no one would disagree with me when I say that we regret it most among the young. It is satisfactory at least that the number of unemployed aged under 18 fell by 26 per cent. in the last year. Indeed, it is now less than half of what it used to be at the time when we first launched the youth training scheme.

§ Lord Molloy
My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that there is great bitterness among young unemployed in Great Britain? To use their term, they say that the Government are fiddling the figures. They say that they are put under undue threats of many kinds. Their lives are being made unhappy not only through the distress of unemployment but by the activities of the Government and those people who support the Government in places that we used to call the employment exchanges. This is not encouraging the youth of our country to want to return to work in order to make their contribution to an honest country with an upright government.

§ Lord Young of Graffham
My Lords, the noble Lord has spent more time with his colleagues than with young people. The young people with whom I speak up and down the land do not accuse this Government of fiddling the figures. The young people to whom I speak appreciate and accept the fact that we have introduced the best training scheme for young people. That is something which noble Lords opposite, when they had the opportunity, hesitated to do and turned away from.

§ Lord Northfield
My Lords, will the noble Lord give us any up-to-date figures about the progress of the Jobclub scheme and the Restart scheme? Have they peaked in success? Is their effect continuing or have we had the best from those schemes? They have done a good deal to bring down the level of the long-term unemployed.

§ Lord Young of Graffham
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord. It is perhaps another question, but my information is that the Jobclubs continue to show the productivity that they have shown in the past in getting those who are out of work back into employment. I have not seen the latest figures from Restart. I shall write to the noble Lord and put a copy in the Library.

§ Lord Dean of Beswick
My Lords, is the Minister aware that any reduction in the very high figures that he has announced is welcome? However, can he 1066 indicate whether he expects the drop in the long-term unemployed to continue at the rate of the past 12 months? As a north countryman, I welcome the fact that the North-West and North-East come out better on the figures that he has produced. However, is it not also a fact that those areas still have the highest percentage of long-term unemployed, certainly in England? Ought they not to be considered for further government measures in order to reduce the appalling figures in those two areas?

§ Lord Young of Graffham
My Lords, forecasting the rate of unemployment was a temptation that I was able to resist in the days when it was going up and also when it started to fall. I do not think it would be profitable to give further forecasts, save one; and that is that the Government will not relax their efforts to ensure that they provide as much help as they can to those who have been out of work for a long time as well as to those newly unemployed. I very much hope that we shall continue to see past progress maintained in the future. But more than that I fear at this moment I cannot say.

§ Lord Dormand of Easington
My Lords, I was saddened that the Secretary of State should suggest that I do not live in the real world. I say to him with great respect—

Noble Lords
Question!

§ Lord Dormand of Easington
Is the noble Lord aware that, as someone who has lived in the North of England for most of his life, perhaps I am more in the real world than he is? Will he now attempt to answer the question? I accept the figures he has given, but, the Government having had nine years of absolute power, can we have an estimate of when we shall get back to the situation in 1979?

§ Lord Young of Graffham
My Lords, I hope we shall never get back to 1979 in terms of productivity, labour relations, output and all the other matters which at that time gave us a worldwide reputation for the British disease. When I go to the North-East and see the new factories that have been set up, when I see the Metrocentre in Newcastle and all the new vigour and vitality of the North-East, I would not exchange that for 1979 for anything.

§ Lord Glenamara
My Lords, will the noble Lord bear in mind what I told him last week, that we greatly welcome these reductions in unemployment? But will he also tell his noble friend Lord Elliott that unemployment in the North-East of England is by far the highest in mainland Britain? Unemployment among males is a sheer affront to society. It is an absolute disgrace, so please will he not be too satisfied and smug about unemployment in the North-East?

§ Lord Young of Graffham
My Lords, I wish to assure all in your Lordships' House that I have never been smug about unemployment. Far from it. But I refute the allegations about the economy and in particular about the way unemployment is going in our country.