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

—as the hon. Gentleman has described it. But if a football club is a commercial organisation it might come within the category of a small firm, which is what Conservative Members get so excited about. It is entitled to temporary employment subsidy just like any other organisation.

The essence of the Government's approach to reducing unemployment is that we should push ahead as rapidly as we can, with the utmost co-operation from both sides of industry, with the industrial strategy. Although manufacturing industry is unlikely to provide in the United Kingdom the number of jobs it has traditionally offered, the whole basis of our success in this country still depends on a thriving manufacturing industry. Without it I do not believe we can get the other jobs even in the service industries, much less the kind of services we require.

The strategy is operated with the cooperation of the trade unions, the CBI, and the individual sectors of industry. Despite criticism of it by Tory Members, it is well regarded and has been well received by industrial management, and that is where it matters.

The right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East recently, in opening the last unemployment debate—and the hon. Member for Cathcart did the same again this evening—was critical of the Government spending money on building up private industry with subsidy. I could quote many examples in Scotland, which could be matched with others from the United Kingdom as a whole, where substantial expansion of private industry has taken place because Government financial assistance was available. Such companies in Scotland are Digital at Ayr, IBM at Greenock, Beechams at Irvine and the Cummins engine plant at Shotts. The subsidies have been paid under the Industry Act. The right hon. Member for Leeds, North-East said that they were nonsensical and that they caused the loss of more jobs than they protected. That is an absurd statement. If the Tory Party were to go back to that policy it would be going back to the pre-1972 days and to repudiation of the 1972 Act, which has had a considerable effect in protecting employment.