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 Bob Mitchell Mr Bob Mitchell , Southampton, Itchen 12:00, 24 July 1978

I am pleased to follow the right hon. and learned Member for Hexham (Mr. Rippon) because he stressed the international and European aspects of the unemployment problem. I represent an area which depends for its prosperity or otherwise noon the level of international trade. We are particularly susceptible to world economic recessions. It is an area where throughout the 1950s and 1960s the unemployment figures were well below the national average. During the 1970s, however, they have grown steadily. Now they are above the national average.

I accept entirely that the figures are nowhere near as bad as those in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer), on Merseyside, and in other parts of the country. Yet the figures are quite traumatic because many people now unemployed in my area have never known before what unemployment is until the last five or six years. It is a traumatic experience for them.

The figures would be a great deal worse but for the fact that in the area are a great number of firms with considerable export orders. One of the largest employers is Vosper Thornycroft, three-quarters of whose work is for export. We export naval ships. I know that occasionally some of my hon. Friends do not like us doing it to dreadful places like Argentina and Brazil and we get resolutions about it, but three-quarters of Vosper Thornycroft work force is employed on export work and the other quarter on work for the Royal Navy. One of the reasons why I have never joined those in this House who have called for drastic reductions in arms expenditure is that it means jobs.

Because my area is so dependent on exports and is doing very well in exports, I reject the alternative strategy, so called, put forward by a number of people, par- ticularly on this side of the House. I do not believe in import controls in the form in which they are put forward because I believe that there would be considerable, indeed massive, retaliation which would have an effect on our exports. That would not improve the employment situation but would merely transfer the problem from one firm to another or from one part of the country to another.

I put other point which I hope will appeal to my Socialist colleagues in the House. It concerns the effects of import restrictions. A year or so ago we placed a restriction on the import of shirts from Portugal. Understandably, a large number of hon. Members, particularly those representing textile areas, said "Hear, hear". I was in Portugal recently and had an opportunity to talk to its Socialist Prime Minister and several other Ministers. I was asked "Do you realise what was the effect in Portugal of that action by your Government?" I was told that almost overnight it put out of work a considerable number of Portuguese workers.

We have to remember that Portugal is a country with much greater economic problems than we have here. It is a much poorer country. All we achieve by import restrictions and restrictions of trade is either to transfer unemployment from one country to another or from one part of our own country to another, or from one firm to another. I do not think that any benefit at all can come from that sort of policy. That is why I reject out of hand the protectionist argument which has been put forward by so many people at one time or another.