Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 24 July 1978.
In the interests of brevity, I shall not rehearse some of the arguments that have been advanced about trying to view the problem of employment and unemployment in a national context. I wish to make some remarks particularly about Northern Ireland.
Three matters require to be ventilated this evening. First, we must recognise the peculiar employment and unemploy- ment problems of the Province. Next, we must look at the Province's assets, which undoubtedly exist, and then at what it requires if the drastic unemployment problem there is to be tackled realistically. There can be no realistic debate on employment in Northern Ireland if we do not consider the problems of communication, the cost of energy, and the effect, albeit temporary, of terrorism.
The first problem of communication as it is related to the infrastructure is a very important matter for the Province. Many of my right hon. and hon. Friends who were here for the debate about membership of the Community stressed that Northern Ireland was a periphery of a periphery in the EEC. Whether or not that argument is accented, it is clear that Northern Ireland is a periphery of the United Kingdom. There is added difficulty because of the stretch of water, the most costly waterway in the whole United Kingdom. No debate about employment can be carried on unless that problem is understood and tackled.
In addition to the expensive stretch of water, we have the difficulty of siting industry in those places where unemployment is highest. They are also the kind of places that will incur many added transportation costs. We have a vicious circle, to which there is no slick, easy answer.
Strabane needs jobs. The unemployment rate there exceeds 25 per cent. of the male population, yet no industry will go there because of the added transportation costs, in respect not only of the stretch of water to which I have referred but of road and rail. The infrastructure is a primary consideration in Northern Ireland.
There are also the questions of the ferry links and of the necessary provision for an air service which will induce executives to site their industry knowing that they will have access to the Province when they wish. Communication in terms of personnel and shipping of the finished products is also a very important matter.
Secondly, there is the question of the cost of energy. Although it has been said again and again in the House it needs to be repeated; gas and electricity costs are three times those in any other part of the United Kingdom. The Government are rightly asked by industrialists "Why should we go to Northern Ireland when our capital and production costs will be far greater than if we settled for, say, an area in the Midlands?" Why would a company site its industry in Northern Ireland when it must pay three times the energy costs of those in any other part of the United Kingdom? This peculiar problem of the Province must also be ventilated.
I am delighted to see that the Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office, has joined us, because I know that he is aware of the problem. I seek from him a commitment to provide Northern Ireland with a direct link to the national grid for gas and possibly even electricity. If the answer tonight is "No", I shall have no alternative but to ask my colleagues to vote against the Government. If the Government give us a sympathetic hearing on this matter, which is one of the most vital considerations, we shall be disposed to listen to what they say.
In passing I want to mention the effect of terrorism. The Government produced a most shoddy document in 1974, showing the cost of Northern Ireland to the national Exchequer. What the document did not take into account was the effect of terrorism. It also left out the returns made by subsidiaries and branch operations of national industry, because tax returns, and so on, are often made as central returns. The effect of terrorism was not revealed in that document, and we felt that that was a very shoddy thing.
I turn to the assets that the Province has to offer. First, there is the trained work force. As part of the Short Brothers and Harland operation we have one of the most impressive apprenticeship schools in the whole United Kingdom, not only for the aerospace industry but for related industries.
Secondly, there are the productivity rates in the Province. Compared with the productivity rates of any other part of the United Kingdom, they make impressive reading. That is a very important consideration for industrialists.
There is also the vexed question of industrial relations. Northern Ireland can boast of perhaps the best industrial relations in the whole of the United Kingdom. It is not difficult to appreciate why. There is an existentialism in Northern Ireland—a facing of the dire facts of life, a knowledge that either one works and gives a good day's work for a fair day's wage or one goes by the board. That has pushed us into producing a productivity rate and industrial relations which I believe are the envy of the rest of the kingdom.
The return to the workers of Northern Ireland has not been all that it should have been. Our wage level stands at about 75 per cent. of the national wage level. Although we have such a high productivity rate and such a good industrial relations situation, there has been no recompense in terms of a fair wage. That applies not only to private industry but to the public sector. Our assets, therefore, include a trained work force and Government training schools—we give the Government credit for bringing them into being—which have given us a pool of workers who would be able to be slotted into industries obtained for the Province.
What I have to say now is not in personal castigation of the Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office. He knows how I feel about his assiduous efforts to bring industry to Northern Ireland. In rightly castigating the Government, I want to ensure that he does not take my comment in a personal way. I am doing my best to bathe my sword in heaven, but if one consults the statistics in the Library one sees that whereas in December 1974 the level of unemployment in Northern Ireland was 6·2 per cent., it is now in excess of 13 per cent. In such circumstances, one can say with justification that the present Government have presided over the virtual death of manufacturing industry in Northern Ireland. It does not make impressive reading.
One may like to say that if we had had a totally planned economy, such a situation would not have happened, but that argument cannot be advanced in Northern Ireland, because there we have Government sponsorship to a very high degree. There may be other reasons, but I think that there are three main reasons for the dreadful death of manufacturing industry in Northern Ireland.
First, in 1974–76 there was the abject failure of the Government to underwrite confidence in the Northern Ireland economy. During those years, thousands of jobs were lost in the manufacturing sector. The former Conservative Government are not without their problems in this respect. Since the inception of direct rule in 1972, a total of 24,000 jobs have been lost in the manufacturing sector in Northern Ireland, so all the blame cannot be laid at the door of the present Government. Neither the Conservative nor the Labour Government really underscored confidence in the Northern Ireland economy.
The most depressing stab in the back delivered to the Province was the unnecessary removal of the defence establishments to other parts of the United Kingdom which did not have the work force to take advantage of the jobs thus removed—to places such as St. Albans. Indeed, the Government were even trying to encourage Northern Ireland workers to resettle on the mainland. If that was not a stab in the back for Northern Ireland, I do not know what was.
One can catalogue the closure of IEL and of Rolls-Royce in Northern Ireland. That was a profitable branch of Rolls-Royce, unlike some branches in England, but it was closed. No attempt was made by the Government to keep it open. There was a real failure to underscore confidence in the Northern Ireland economy when it mattered most.
Secondly, there was the improper use of Government resources in those early days. Here a word must be said in gratitude to the Minister of State for the way he has tidied up at least this part of the problem. We now have the Northern Ireland Development Agency. whic his cautiously advancing and is circumspectly looking at job possibilities. But previously the Northern Ireland Finance Corporation and LEDU threw their money around as if it was going out of style, wasting it on the most atrocious projects. One hesitates to digress in suggesting that these projects were adopted because of their political significance, but the fact is that £20 million-plus was wasted in the Province which, if judiciously applied, would have created many jobs which would have gone some way to obviating the loss of 24,000 jobs in the manufacturing sector.
Thirdly, there was the failure to encourage local investment. Believe it or not, in Northern Ireland there are still one or two millionaires; there are still people who have money to invest. Not only is there money to invest in the Province, there are those who have produced very exciting projects which, if they had been adopted by the Government, could have produced many hundreds of jobs.
This House has changed the building regulations to take cognisance of the need for heating regulations and thermal regulations. In that area alone, a couple of projects have been suggested by Northern Ireland people for which the manufacture could be done in Northern Ireland, thus producing jobs. In some cases, the possibilities were allowed to drift out of the Province. One has been taken up. But it is true to say that one of them was treated rather shabbily by the Government Department concerned. I have referred to it before and I shall not hark back to it now, but, for example, there was the little portable heart machine which could have been manufactured in the Province. It, too, was allowed to slip.
In summary, there were these three main requirements—the need for the Government to underwrite the economy, the need to use the resources of the Northern Ireland Development Agency and LEDU, and the need to encourage the investment of local money. I ask the Government how, if they reject those three suggestions, they hope to meet the target that was projected in the Quigley report, of about 25,000 jobs by 1980? If we are to get within striking distance of the national average of unemployment, we have to find 25,000 jobs by 1980—at least that. I am afraid that the figures are going the other way; they are at 13·4 per cent. when they really ought to be moving towards 3·4 per cent. How will those 25,000 jobs be provided?
I end on a note which to some extern echoes the comment made by the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Hoyle). He apologised for taking us almost to realms of the year 2001, the space age, and so on, when he talked about electronic devices in offices which would render office staff unemployed. I want to make a point about future employment as it relates to the space age. Whatever we think about employment opportunities or possibilities in the future, we cannot but accept that there will be a fundamental change in life style —mainly in transportation—and we already know how costly and important the space age is.
If this country is to be in a position to fulfil a role in the space age, with all the possibilities of unemployment that that exhibits, we neglect Africa at our cost. Africa has within it all the minerals that are absolutely necessary for the space age, in terms not just of missiles and weaponry but of future travel. It has cobalt, titanium and bauxite, and the presence in Africa of the Russians and the Chinese has nothing to do with the liberation of national groups in Africa. It has everything to do with cobalt, it has everything to do with titanium, and it has everything to do with bauxite.
If we allow those resources to slip from our hands, or if we fail to have access to them, unemployment in the space age, which is not very far away, will be such as totally to destroy the greatness of this nation.