Inward Investment (Hansard, 27 July 1993)

§ Miss Widdecombe

In addition to the specific activities of the Department of Trade and Industry's Invest in Britain Bureau, one of the lowest rates of corporation tax in the developed world, and a Government who support the enterprise culture, overseas investors are attracted by the United Kingdom's labour market. Fewer days are now lost to industrial action since records began more than 100 years ago, the regulatory burden on employers is light and the labour market is the most flexible in Europe. That is why the United Kingdom attracts nearly 41 per cent. of the stock of Japanese investment and over 36 per cent. of the stock of United States investment into the EC. This continuing investment, which has created or safeguarded

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Letter from M. E. G. Fogden to Ms Clare Short, dated 26 July 1993:

As the Employment Service is an Executive Agency, the Secretary of State has asked me to write to you direct to respond to your Parliamentary Question to him about the number of Jobclubs operational for each region and for Great Britain as a whole, and how many of them cater for people with special needs. This is something which falls within the responsibilities delegated to me as Chief Executive of the Agency.

The information is given in the attached table. It shows the number of standard and specialist Jobclubs by region and for Great Britain as a whole at the end of June 1993.

My colleague John Cooper wrote to you in December last year on the subject of Jobclubs for people with special needs. As he said then, all Jobclubs accept members who either have some degree of literacy or language problem, have a disability or have been in prison. Similarly, all Jobclubs are open to people seeking executive or managerial work.

Since he wrote to you the evaluation of the supportive Jobclub network has been carried out. As you know supportive Jobclubs provide additional help to people with more severe problems who cannot cope in a standard Jobclub, such as people with literacy or language problems, or those with a severe lack of confidence. The evaluation, which was completed in March 1993, identified a number of good practices within the network and found that supportive Jobclubs are successful in placing unemployed people directly into work. On the strength of these findings further places will be available this year to help people with special needs in supportive Jobclubs.

I hope this is helpful.

As decided by the Administration Committee of the House of Commons, Chief Executive replies to written Parliamentary Questions will now be published in the Official Report. I will also place a copy of this letter in the Library of the House.

more than 275,000 jobs over the last five years, would be put at risk by adopting the added costs and restrictions of the social chapter, which the United Kingdom will continue to resist.