Orders of the Day — Unemployment

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 24 July 1978.

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Photo of Mr Barney Hayhoe Mr Barney Hayhoe , Hounslow Brentford and Isleworth 12:00, 24 July 1978

To suggest that unemployment was generally worse during the period in office of the last Conservative Government is to make a nonsense of these figures.

It is worthwhile reminding ourselves when talking about these figures that they are not abstract statistics. We are talking about real people and their families. There are more real people and their families being hurt by unemployment now than there were in the earlier period to which the Minister of State referred.

There are more than 330,000 unemployed who have been unemployed for more than a year. That is an extremely worrying figure. In July of this year, 240,000 of those were school leavers, though we hope that many of them will be obtaining jobs or training places in the relatively near future.

Sometimes I think that the way in which matters are being arranged is to contrive a very sharp drop in the figures in September of this year, and we can understand this as a window-dressing operation for the General Election which may well follow.

It is not realised by many that about 750,000 of the present 1·4 million or 1·5 million who are unemployed are under 30 years of age. That is an extremely worrying feature. When we consider the composition of the figures, we find that disadvantaged groups within our society are suffering most. The young blacks in our large cities are suffering a higher rate of unemployment than any other group. Those without qualifications are much less likely to get a job on leaving school or in their early years than those who have managed to obtain a qualification at school. Particular problems face the children of the long-term unemployed, as they do the disabled, especially the young disabled. In recent years the incidence of unemployment among young women has risen more sharply than among young men.

I do not know how many of the disadvantaged groups will be following our proceedings today. I suppose that many of them could not care less what takes place in the House. That is because many of them have opted out of the system. Part of the corrosive effect of long-term unemployment is the loss of dignity suffered by the individual, the loss of self-respect between himself and his family and between himself and his neighbours. If we do not understand the human factors that are involved in these problems, we shall not be able to bring sufficient strength of purpose to bear upon their solution.

The Government came to power on the slogan that a Labour Government could get the people back to work. In October 1974 they sustained themselves—