Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 24 July 1978.
I can assure the House that what I have to say is not much short of precisely that.
On 4th July I argued that we have to make better use of land to provide employment. It is crazy that in rural areas like mine it now takes 200 acres of land to provide one job. That great natural resource, for which we do not have to compete with the rest of the world, should be used to provide many more jobs.
I also argued for regional development —not because it increased the GNP but on the basis of fair play. I see no logical reason why the people of Merseyside or Cornwall should not have a fair slice of the cake. That must be the justification for regional aid—not the belief that it necessarily increases wealth.
This is the second unemployment debate in which I have taken part in which no one has mentioned selling anything. If one sells things, there are no difficulties about making them. We need better promotion of our products. What we have is all we have. The idea that we can suddenly invest enormous sums which we do not have in producing something else to sell is nonsense. We must make better use of what we have. Our attitude to marketing is amazingly pathetic.
The great micro-circuit technology will come. I do not know why the House treats it like a great dragon which will eat us all and must be stopped at our borders. This country will be left out of the technological revolution if we do not accept it as a fact of life. I welcome the Government's initiative of the last 12 months in recognising that this country is being left dangerously far behind and must make an effort to catch up. If we do not start making the effort soon, we shall be so far behind that it will be impossible.
The great new solution for unemployment offered by the Conservatives is better use of small firms. They could and should be able to make a useful contribution, but the pretence that they can solve the problem is extraordinary. The vast bulk of small firms is in retailing. In my part of the country, they sell holidays and do very well, at least at this time of the year. That might be increased a little. But the rest are barbers, or sell chocolates and ice cream. Will we compel people to have a haircut more often or to buy more ice cream?
If one leaves out that enormous spectrum and argues that the rest will solve the unemployment problem, we should then be talking about those firms quadrupling the number of their employees, not just taking on one or two extra people. Anybody who thinks about the problem knows that it is not so.
Having said that, none the less I ask the Government why, in giving incentives to small industry, which can provide more jobs, they draw the distinctions that they do. In my constituency there are many garages, as there are in every constituency, that carry out substantial repair work to motor cars. The concept of repairing motor cars has tended to go out of fashion. One does not repair a motor car; one replaces it. What is labour-intensive about motor cars is repairing them, yet the grants made in relation to motor cars are devoted to encouraging people to manufacture cars rather than to repair them. I believe that many extra jobs could be provided if we encouraged the concept of repairing motor cars, washing machines, and much of the other equipment that is now part of ordinary household life.
I cannot see any justification whatever for a small firm in my constituency which does extensive body repair work being refused a grant under the small firm employment subsidy, whereas, presumably, if the firm were working as a subcontractor, making carburettor parts for British Leyland, and if it employed fewer than 50 people, it would receive a grant. I fail to see the distinction. In either case, the firm is either saving the country money or producing money for the country.
However, the problem about my underlying proposition is that there is a great dearth of skill, and it is very difficult to find anybody who knows how to repair a gearbox, a back axle, or a differential. Part of the reason why the manufacturers of such car parts no longer offer spares so that the components can be repaired is that they know that there are not the people available with the necessary skills to repair them.
I want to enter a plea for a particular group of my constituents, but I know that the problem involved is widespread throughout nearly all constituencies. I have met a number of small farmers, small shopkeepers, small self-employed tradesmen, who have sensibly decided to sell up their business and pursue ordinary employment.
It is quite a business to get rid of a farm. One cannot do that in an afternoon. It is not like giving up employment at the company that I used to work for, where an employee could tell the boss at 3 pm what to do with his job and at 5 pm that employee would be out of employment. It is not such a simple operation when one wants to get rid of a farm, yet people have gone through that operation and at the age of 62 or 63 have been left with a small sum—perhaps no more than £10,000 or £12,000—in the bank as their lifetime savings. They have qualified for not one halfpenny of benefit. They have not qualified for unemployment benefit and their capital sum has disentit1ed them to supplementary benefit.
Clearly, such people are being cheated of the fruits of their life's work. They reach the age of 65 having spent their nest-egg on living in the meantime, because it is impossible to find employment at the age of 62 or 63.
I see no reason why unemployment pay should not be paid to the self-employed on satisfactory conditions—for example, if they register for work for three months and for the next three months they fail to find suitable alternative employment. Similar regulations are already applied to employees who voluntarily relinquish employment before retirement age. If my suggestion were followed, much of the agony and personal misery that arises for this reason would be alleviated.
I shall bow to your injunction, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have covered most of the points that I wished to make, either in this debate or in the previous one. If the House, in the hours during which we have spent discussing this problem had succeeded in producing two good ideas an hour, we might have been somewhere near making progress. I have listened to the expression of more hopes and aspirations and benevolent thoughts for constituents than to hard reality.
If there is to be an election in October, as clearly as there is to be—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—Clearly we are going to have an election in October. If so, let us at least be honest with the British public about unemployment. Even if we tell fibs about every other subject, for goodness sake let us be honest about unemployment and admit that there will be more than I million unemployed for at least the duration of the next Parliament, for that is the reality.