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 recognise the strong fight that my hon. Friend, ever since I have known him in this Parliament, has put up for the textile industry. The point I was making was that the effect of what we did was to transfer unemployment from here to Portugal, which is a poor country. That had an even more serious effect than a similar action taken by some other country would have had here.

At least some of my hon. Friends have put forward an alternative economic strategy, but I heard no alternative policy whatsoever put forward by the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mr. Hayhoe) from the Conservative Front Bench today. There were some interesting suggestions made by the right hon. and learned Member for Hexham. Perhaps it is significant that he speaks from the Back Benches.