§ Mr. Wrigglesworthasked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will publish the letter, dated 13th April, from his Under-Secretary of State, to the hon. Member for Thornaby.
§ Mr. GoldingYes. The letter reads as follows:
"Dear Ian
On 2nd December 1975 you asked if the Secretary of State for Employment would regularly publish figures showing the number of young people unemployed. In my reply I said that in future the numbers unemployed under the age of 20 would be published each month in the Gazette.
Commencing with the November 1975 issue of the Gazette the numbers of unemployed teenagers have been included in the regional analysis table and in the historical unemployment tables. However, examination of the statistics so far collected and comparison with the six-monthly age analysis in January suggest that the monthly figures do not identify all the unemployed teenagers. We have no 209W wish to publish statistics that do not reach a high standard of accuracy and have decided to omit the numbers of unemployed teenagers from future Gazettes.
I am naturally disappointed that it has been necessary to take this action. We will continue to collect the figures for the present and will try to find some way of overcoming this problem.
Yours,
John Fraser."
Applications Received Applications Approved Region Establishments Jobs Establishments Jobs Northern … … … … 31 2,935 17 2,012 Yorkshire and Humberside … … … … 49 4,233 38 3,857 South-East … … … … 99 8,195 47 3,764 South-West … … … … 48 2,474 34 2,117 Midlands … … … … 125 12,207 75 7,308 North-West … … … … 159 12,736 122 10,557 Wales … … … … 45 4,433 29 2,344 Scotland … … … … 87 6,802 55 4,793 643 54,015 417 36,482