Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 24 July 1978.
It is amazing how hon. Members never recognise that they are arguing for further public expenditure when one points out that that is precisely what they are doing. Nevertheless, if the right hon. Member says that that is what he was not doing, I shall accept his word, although it sounded very much like that to my hon. Friends and myself. The right hon. Member is still a sinner. That is too bad for him. Sooner or later he may come around to our point of view.
I want to make one point about public expenditure because it is tied up with the whole question of the use of the North Sea oil revenues. We have two jobs to do in relation to the use of those oil revenues. This matter is very important. We cannot discuss the future of our country without discussing what we are to do with these revenues. The first thing that we have to do, obviously, is to regenerate British industry, but we have heard sufficient this afternoon to make it clear—my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Hoyle) and other hon. Members have made it clear—that with modern developments in technology, investment in itself does not necessarily lead to further new jobs being created. On the contrary, we can give example after example of jobs being lost as a result of new investment.
Pilkingtons is a classic example. It employs 950 workers on an existing process, but once the new factory in which it is investing £32 million is finally put into operation, it will produce more with half the present work force.
Therefore, in the context of regenerating British industry, we must think in terms of creating new jobs and new industries and of developing all sorts of new companies. That is why the National Enterprise Board needs financial backing. Many of us have argued for a long time, as has the TUC, that at least £1 billion should be available for the NEB to involve itself in further activities towards the creation of new jobs and new industries, particularly in areas such as the north-west and the north-east. That is even more important when one considers that Scotland and Wales now have their development agencies. It is vital that the NEB should involve itself in that way in developing and creating new jobs.
There is also something else that we need to do. I have read the White Paper on pay very carefully. The Government have a point when they say that if one reduces working hours and keeps pay the same, obviously one raises unit costs. No one will argue that that does not happen. But we heard this argument in the past when we reduced the number of working hours to 40 a week. When I first went into industry, I worked for 46 hours a week. As that number was slowly being reduced to 40, we were told that the country could not afford it. It was the same when we were told that the country could not afford the first old-age pension of 5s. a week, and when we were told that the country could not afford not to have children working in the coal mines because the economy would collapse.
I say that we cannot afford not to bring down working hours to 35 a week. We shall then have to develop, with modern technology, ways and means of overcoming the problem of unit costs by increased productivity. That is the answer. We must also have a definite policy of allowing people to retire from industry earlier, on a voluntary basis. I say to trade unionists that the unions will have to control overtime much more than they control it at present. It is a scandal that overtime is worked to the present degree when other workers are unemployed, because those other workers could be assisted in getting employment if the amount of overtime working was controlled.
I accept entirely that we need new attitudes towards training. We should look at the Swedish system and gain a great deal of expertise and understanding from Sweden and apply it in this country. Luxembourg was mentioned earlier, but that is only a very small place. Sweden has proved that we could carry out retraining policies, which are very important.
I conclude by mentioning my own locality. The problems of Merseyside have been mentioned today. Like other hon. Members, I have experienced unemployment. It is not a very pleasant experience. If one has been out of work for six months or a year, or two years— although unemployment does not mean the same as it meant in the 1930s, because Labour Governments, in particular, have introduced legislation to make certain that it is not the same as it was in the 1930s —it is demoralising, and unemployed people are living at a level at which they ought not to have to live, particularly if they were able to get decent employment. The human suffering, in the mental sense and other senses, is very bad when one has been unemployed for some time.
However, we have done a great deal for Merseyside. The present Government made it a special development area in the first phase. Had we not done that, it would probably have been worse than it is at present. We have had the temporary employment subsidies and all of the other items on the long list of activities for which the Secretary of Slate has been responsible. They are very good indeed. I am all for them. What has been done has been excellent. I commend my right hon. Friend for his activities in this direction. We have had support for the inner city. We have had more housing support than ever in the history of our city. All these things have been done, because, I would argue, incidentally, of pressure primarily from Labour Members, who have never stopped talking about the problems of unemployment on Merseyside.
Despite all that, however, we have a long way to go. Obviously we must offer the workers on Merseyside something much more positive than they have been offered in the past. The truth is that the capitalist private enterprise companies are basically those which have failed the area. They have drawn large sums in subsidies from the Government, yet they have still failed. There are all sorts of reasons for that. That is why we must bring in the NEB and we must create new jobs and industries along the lines I have suggested.
Whatever we do, I hope that we do not accept the ideas of the right hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East (Sir G. Howe), who has said "Let us have a sort of free zone, let us not have the Employment Protection Act in operation, and let us have only the basic minimum when it comes to health and safety. Let us have a situation in which all the building regulations, and so on, are eliminated." That is a recipe for disaster. Once there was a small pocket like that in any part of the country there would be a demand that it should increase until it engulfed the entire country.