Employment

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 29 January 1976.

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Photo of Mr James Prior Mr James Prior , Lowestoft 12:00, 29 January 1976

Yes, and during the debate on unemployment before Christmas I asked the Government what was their policy on IDCs. We have still not had an answer. We still do not know the Government's policy towards IDCs in the West Midlands.

If the country accepts, as I am certain that it will, that unemployment will be a lot higher in the next two or three years than we have known for a very long time past, perhaps we had better start looking at proper schemes of retraining. Let us use all that spare capacity in industry for proper schemes of contracts with private industry to get people trained. That would now he a better use for any cash that we have than going on with the process we have at the moment of palliatives towards short-term unemployment. We have to recognise now that we shall need a massive retraining and training exercise spread over a long time.

The Secretary of State for Employment has a special responsibility because he was very largely responsible for stoking up the inflation of 1974 and part of 1975. It was he who gave encouragement—almost a blessing—to every large wage increase in the public sector and elsewhere, and he is now reaping the whirlwind of what has happened. He sits in his place as Secretary of State for Employment knowing that it is the policy which he adopted—and he more than anyone else—in that period from March 1974 to July 1975 which has resulted in the inflation that we have experienced, and the bringing down of that inflation now is the cause of the unemployment from which we suffer.

At one stage the right hon. Gentleman went so far as to say that he was not prepared to remain in his Department and preside over mass unemployment. That was when unemployment was running at a level of 600,000. Today it is 1·2 million and increasing.

The truth is that the last two years have been disastrous years for our country and for our people. The only coherent alternative strategy that we have heard from the Opposition has come from the far Left of the Labour Party[Interruption.] I meant from the Government Benches. For one moment I thought that I was back in the Government. The only coherent alternative strategy comes from the far Left. If we accepted it, it would fundamentally change the nature of our society. Let us have no doubt about that. Half-hearted mutterings about private enterprise from the Government—a Government who bend to the winds of expediency and Left-wing pressures—are no answer to our problems.

We need a Government who know what has to be done, mean what they say, tell the truth for a change, trust the people and lay down the foundations for restoring confidence and prosperity to all our people. I believe that this Government have failed the nation. They have failed to tell the truth. That will result in unemployment lasting longer and being worse than necessary. We need a properly-run economy. I invite my right hon. and hon. Friends to vote for our amendment.