Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 24 July 1978.
I ask the hon. Gentleman to forgive me. I cannot allow hon. Members to use my speech as a vehicle for making their own.
The special measures are at present supporting over 300,000 jobs or training places, and as they develop we plan to extend them to 400,000 by 1979. I was a little concerned to note the lack of support for the special measures evinced by the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth compared with what he has previously shown and his lack of recognition of their beneficial effects, especially in training.
I come next to the recently introduced youth opportunities programme and the special temporary employment programme. Here again, it is difficult to predict just how useful they will be because so much depends on local initiative and co-operation. But the youth opportunities programme should help with the summer school leavers—whose addition to the register in July was the major cause of the July increase in the register over June—when the programme is opened to them on and after 1st September.
We expect that by September the youth opportunities programme will be supporting about 130,000 school leavers in training and in work experience. It is good to note that, despite a larger number of school leavers this year compared with last year, the number on the register so far is less than it was last year. We expect the youth opportunities programme to help about 234,000 young people in a full year, and the figure for the special temporary employment programme will be about 25,000 temporary jobs. But, again, all this depends on the Manpower Services Commission receiving the support and co-operation of local communities.
The Government have circulated for comment proposals about a new short-time working scheme. No firm decisions have yet been made about the scheme because the necessary consultations are still in progress. But a decision to introduce such a scheme would obviously affect further levels of unemployment by keeping off the register people whose firms were experiencing difficulties which could cause temporary or permanent layoffs.
I readily acknowledge that, in part, the hon. Gentleman's speech sought to be constructive—certainly, in rather greater measure than the speech of the right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph), which I have carefully read, when he opened the debate on 4th July. I hope that the debate today, instead of being taken as an opportunity for a mere exercise in Government-bashing or Labour Party-bashing, will be used in an attempt to focus attention on constructive ways to help the unemployed.
I read the right hon. Gentleman's speech with great care because I assumed that it represented the Opposition's policy and reflected the measures which they might take, given the opportunity to do so, to help the unemployed and to reduce the level of unemployment. Unfortunately, I was not able to hear it, but I have to say that, on reading the speech, I find that it carries some echoes of the speeches which we heard both in the House and outside immediately prior to the 1970 General Election. Very much the same philosophy was embodied in it as figured in the speeches which we heard on those earlier occasions and which, after that General Election, the Tories sought to implement, with the consequence that two years later unemployment had doubled. There was an increase of nearly 100 per cent. I have given the unemployment figures from the official record in the Department of Employment Gazette. The policy outlined in the right hon. Gentleman's speech seemed to consist of the following elements, some of which were echoed by the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth today. First—this is common ground in all Tory speeches—there would be cuts in taxation, both personal and corporate. Second—my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Madden) challenged the Opposition on this, and I must tell him that I draw the same conclusion from the speeches of the right hon. Lady the Leader of the Opposition—there would be total abandonment of any pay and prices policy other than for the public sector. That I see as the next element in Tory policy.
Third, there would be swingeing cuts in public expenditure. Fourth, the Tories would carve up and fillet, as we heard again today, our employment legislation. Fifth, they would cut, if not cut out entirely, subsidies and grants to industry and commerce.
The hon. Gentleman seemed to want things both ways, and I must tell him that what he said today about subsidies was not altogether consistent with the line taken by his right hon. Friend on 4th July. I shall quote now some fragments which I quickly noted in the right hon. Gentleman's speech. Referring to subsidies and grants, he said:
In aggregate, we believe that these subsidies and grants do more harm than good. They will not make us more competitive… We believe that subsidies and grants and, indeed, the industrial strategy distract management and workers from the key task of putting their own house in order by co-operation between themselves… We believe that the impact for harm via higher taxes and higher interest rates of all these subsidies and grants is greater than the impact for good… Anyway, these grants and subsidies may rescue some jobs but only at the cost of other jobs."—[Official Report, 4th July 1978; Vol. 953, c. 255–6.]
If that was not spelling out the greatest distaste for and rejection of subsidies and grants, I do not know what it was. The right hon. Gentleman could not have put it more clearly.