§ Lord Dean of Beswickasked Her Majesty's Government:
How may times since 1979 the criteria for calculating the number of people unemployed have 826WA been changed, and what effect each change has had on the unemployment figures issued.
§ The Secretary of State for Employment (Lord Young of Graffham)I refer the noble Lord to my Answer to the noble Lord, Lord Oram, of 7th October, cols. 114–117, which listed all the changes since 1979 in the method of calculating the numbers of people unemployed. Of these changes, only the switch in October 1982 from counting registrants at Jobcentres and careers offices to counting benefit claimants, following the introduction of voluntary registration at Jobcentres, could be regarded as a change in the definition of unemployment. It is estimated that this change reduced the unadjusted count by 190,000 at the time.
The Parliament was dissolved by Royal Proclamation on Monday, 18th May 1987.
End of the Fourth Session of the Forty-ninth Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in the thirty-sixth year of the Reign of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.