§ Mr. Arthur Lewisasked the Secretary of State for Employment on what criteria he has stated that there is more unemployment among the immigrant population but that the figures are only marginally above the national average.
§ Mr. John GrantI assume the hon. Member is referring to remarks which my hon. Friend the Minister of State and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary have made recently.
They were referring to a count which is made quarterly—February, May, August and November—and subsequently published in the Department of EmploymentGazette, of the number of unemployed people who come from the New Commonwealth or Pakistan, or one of whose parents comes from these countries. Whilst it is not possible to derive 76W from these counts the precise number of those in the ethnic minority groups unemployed as a percentage of the working population within those groups. it is possible to measure the comparative rate of change in unemployment between the ethnic minority groups and the total working population.