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 Bruce Millan Mr Bruce Millan , Glasgow Craigton 12:00, 24 July 1978

There has been an assumption in a number of speeches from both sides of the House that the total numbers in employment are bound to be reduced because of advancing technology in manufacturing industry. I do not accept that. I use the experience of what has happened over the last five years.

That does not mean that in many parts of the country there are not many intractable unemployment problems. The hon. Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Bradford) mentioned the particular problems in Northern Ireland. That is an area of particular difficulty. The hon. Member mentioned electricity prices. Because of the direct Government subsidy in Northern Ireland, electricity prices to industry are now, on average, the same as for the rest of the United Kingdom. There is a particular problem about gas prices. The Minister of State at the Northern Ireland Office is about to put to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland recommendations for gas which arise from discussions with the British Gas Corporation and others. There has been a thorough inquiry into the problem. Certain options are available and we are considering them.

I return to the more general question of the background against which we must consider the present unemployment problem. The hon. Member for Cathcart acknowledged that we are considering the problem against the background of what is still an extremely disturbing and unhealthy world situation. The effects of the rise in oil prices since 1973 have not yet been overcome by co-operation between the developed nations.

I was interested in what the right hon. and learned Member for Hexham (Mr. Rippon) said but I did not agree with his conclusions. However, I agree with him that we must take into account the world problem. Inflation will be the subject of more detailed debate tomorrow when we discuss the White Paper. The only way in which the country can successfully compete with the rest of the world and, therefore, the only way in which we can keep the rate of unemployment down, is to improve our inflation record. We have done that to a considerable extent in the last year.

An indispensable part of the Government's policy is to keep on working at the reduction of the inflation rate. All our policies are based on achieving that objective. Without it we cannot have a competitive industry. Without a competitive industry, I do not believe that we shall make a significant impact on the unemployment figures.

That does not mean that we should not use every possible opportunity, by the temporary measures that we have introduced, and by others that we are considering, to reduce the crude unemployment figures as much as we possibly can. As my hon. Friend the Minister of State said in opening the debate for the Government this afternoon, the various special employment and training measures introduced by the Government, and which are operating now, cover about 300,000 people, and therefore have had a significant effect on the total number unemployed.

When we introduced these various special measures, many of them were criticised in a disparaging way by Conservative Members as making no significant contribution to the solution of our unemployment problem. The interesting thing now is that virtually everyone in the House believes that these special measures, temporary as some of them are, have a significant role to play. Indeed, the pressure now is not to remove these measures but to extend them both in time and in scope, and I am glad to say that over recent months we have done a number of things in that direction. As my hon. Friend said, we have a short-time working scheme under consideration with industry.

Nor have we neglected the question of training and retraining, a matter which a number of hon. Members raised. There is now a higher level of training and retraining than ever before. The problem of the shortage of skills—a matter that was raised by a number of my hon. Friends and by one Conservative Member—is under active consideration, and I draw to the attention of those who raised this matter the publication by the Manpower Services Commission entitled "Training for Skills: A Programme for Action", which was issued in December 1977. That is now under active consideration, and we shall have substantive discussions on this matter with the MSC in the autumn. The Government have welcomed the general approach of that document, they have agreed to provide financial backing, and these proposals are likely to come into effect in the autumn of 1979.

The business of attracting back into industry skilled people who have left it for a variety of reasons is extremely difficult. We know too little about why people leave. In particular, we know too little about why, in certain areas despite the fact that there are vacancies, with high wages, it is almost impossible to bring them back. I think that it is possible to exaggerate this problem in a number of ways. Nevertheless, the problem is real, and in particular areas, and with particular skills, especially in engineering, there are considerable difficulties

A considerable restraint on expanding firms is that they are unable to find the skilled workers that they need. More effort than ever before is being put into trying to deal with this problem, by the MSC and by others, and I believe that some of these efforts will bear fruit.