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 Michael Roberts Mr Michael Roberts , Cardiff North West 12:00, 24 July 1978

I offer the hon. Member for Liverpool, Garston (Mr. Loyden) the nicest compliment that I can pay him. The hon. Gentleman clearly shares many of the mythologies that we love so much in Wales. We cherish and enjoy our mythology. One mythology has today been shattered. That is not the mythology that God creates unemployment—the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Helfer) said that he no longer believes that to be so—but that the Tories cause unemployment. That used to be believed, but the belief was tested when there was a Labour Government from 1964 to 1966 and unemployment increased from 2·5 per cent. to 4·1 per cent. Nevertheless, we went on believing the old story. That has now been destroyed by a Labour Government.

The Labour Government of 1974·78 took office when there were 38,000 unemployed in the Principality. The figure now stands at 98,000. That is a disgraceful betrayal of all that the Welsh people hoped for when the Labour Government were elected. August is usually a bad month for unemployment while June is a rather good month. As there are more school leavers to come on the unemployment list, it is confidently expected that there will be 100,000 out of work in the Principality by August. There is no doubt that in September there will be various schemes temporarily to take people off the unemployment list until after the General Election.

When considering the areas most badly hit by unemployment, we have only to bear in mind the area represented by the Lord President. In Ebbw Vale and Tredegar 11·3 per cent. of the working population is unemployed. In June male unemployment in Cardiff reached 10·9 per cent. Male unemployment is the great growth feature of the Cardiff area.

We are fortunate that the effect of unemployment in that area is temporarily concealed. That is because the East Moors steel workers received redundancy and additional compensation. Not all the East Moors workers received that treatment. There were 900 who did not. In June 1977 they were persuaded by the trade unions and the corporation to take their redundancy payments to make the works more viable and so that there could be a steady flow on to the unemployment market and not a flood. They were soon joined by a further 3,200 workers. When the money starts to run out, as undoubtedly it will, Cardiff, too, will feel the pinch.

How things have changed over the past four years. Four years ago I remember so well the Prime Minister walking from East Moors with the Lord Mayor and others, myself included, when the great march took place to keep open the East Moors works. At that time the Prime Minister was in Opposition. In 1974 we were invited to vote Labour to keep the works open. That is a promise that Cardiff people will not forget. It is now universally accepted that if East Moors had not been nationalised it would be open today and supplying the natural market of GKN across the road.

Whatever nationalisation has done for other areas, it has done nothing for Cardiff. It has been a total disaster. I am sure that the hon. Member for Gars-ton, an ex-president of the Liverpool trades council, will be interested to know the view of the Cardiff Trades Council, The hon. Gentleman has said that in view of what has happened to the private sector we must look to the public sector. I must tell him that in Cardiff we do not take that view, especially after a segment of the public sector has closed down and put about 4,200 people on the scrap heap. The only hope for the people of Cardiff is in small businesses, which will create the necessary employment.

The Cardiff trades council takes a much grimmer view than I do of the prospects for employment. Recently, in a memorandum to the Prime Minister, which was quoted in the South Wales Echo, it said that unemployment would increase from 10,000, where it now stands, to 20,000. I think that is an over-gloomy picture. I hope that it is wrong, but it says what it says, if not accurately, at least with sincerity.

On youth unemployment, the Cardiff Trades Council said that it would like to see permanent jobs at proper trade union rates of pay instead of temporary employment schemes. I think that most people, however much they welcome any temporary relief, want permanent jobs.

A new mythology is being created in Wales. It is the new mythology of the Left and of Plaid Cymru. It is to take a meaningless and foolish equation: "We have 99,000 people unemployed in Wales. We pay out a vast amount of money in social benefits to keep them unemployed and there are 600 miles of roads which need to be constructed. Therefore "—this is the new mythology of the Left—"all we have to do is to solve this equation. It is an administrative matter of organising the resources."

There is absolutely no way in which the unemployed of the city of Cardiff will be employed on building roads throughout the Principality. Anyone who looks at the problem knows that is true. The people of Wales are being deceived by this silly talk of just organising the resources to solve the problem of unemployment. The people who say that are afraid to recognise the truth—that this Government have failed completely.

Perhaps that accounts for the fact that only one Welsh Labour Member of Parliament has come into the Chamber for this debate. But imagine how many would have come in if the reverse had been the case! What would have happened if it were a Conservative Government with 1,500,000 unemployed throughout the country, nearly 100,000 of them in the Principality? I do not want the House to stretch its imagination too far. I could take a quotation from practically every Welsh Labour Member of Parliament. Instead, I shall take one from the hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock). In 1972, he said: Ever since the day of John Maynard Keynes, any Government allowing unemployment rates to rise not even as high as this rate have been guilty if not of a criminal act, certainly of criminal negligence."—[Official Report, 24th January 1972; Vol. 829, c. 1089.] Where are they now to decide whether this Government are guilty of negligence or of a criminal act?

The only future for employment in the Principality is through small businesses. They are the backbone of the Welsh economy. Small business men—the backbone of the Welsh economy—demand, among other things, three important matters. They demand that the achievement of young people entering industry should be greater. Recently the National Coal Board pointed out that it had to reject 15 per cent. of young applicants for jobs in the coal industry in South Wales because they were unemployable in terms of literacy and numeracy. That is something that the schools in the Principality must take into consideration. We must improve our standards. That is precisely what the Conservative Party has been saying for the last four years, and some Labour Members have begun to realise its significance.

We must also look at the shortage of skills caused by the breakdown in differentials. In every constituency—certainly in mine—there are examples of toolmakers giving up their jobs and taking other positions, often outside industry. Once they are lost to industry in that way, they are lost for ever. A toolmaker is a skilled man who, through enterprise and skill, can give employment to between 12 and 20 people. In a small enterprise everything is often dependent on him.

There is no doubt that many small employers believe that the Employment Protection Act prevents them from freely taking on the young labour that they would like to test and have working for them. Large numbers of small employers believe that is true. The Labour Party and Government ignore their arguments and show their indifference to the young people of the Principality who seek, but are denied, jobs because the Employment Protection Act does not protect, but prevents them from taking jobs.

Small business men in the Principality anyway, where there are so many, given the right encouragement by the Government, could dramatically alter unemployment in Wales. There is no alternative in the Principality. It will be the means to which the next Conservative Government will turn to meet the great challenge of our time.