Orders of the Day — Unemployment and the Economy

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 7:10 pm on 10 November 1982.

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Photo of Mr Terence Higgins Mr Terence Higgins , Worthing 7:10, 10 November 1982

The debate is taking place against the background of the Chancellor's statement to the House on Monday and the autumn statement that he published at that time. As the Chairman of the Select Committee on Procedure (Finance) and a member of the Select Committee on the Treasury and Civil Service, I congratulate the Government on the way in which the document has been produced. It is a significant advance on previous such publications.

The figures for public expenditure have been produced, at least in outline, in the autumn, which has happened only once before—when I was a Treasury Minister—and that is a great improvement on what happened this year, when the figures were not produced until the spring. In addition, some of the figures for the ready reckoners for tax changes are illuminating.

However, in the light of the discussions that the Treasury and the Procedure (Finance) Committee have been having on the Armstrong report and the proposals for a "Green" Budget, bringing the taxation and expenditure sides of Government affairs together, the autumn statement is a long way short of a true "Green" Budget. Therefore, we look forward to further progress. Nevertheless, the statement is to be welcomed as a step in the right direction.

It is always a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay). There are frequently points on which we disagree. Indeed, he made again the usual points with which I always disagree, although I had not previously heard the comparison with Neville Chamberlain.

I wish to take up the theme of the thoughtful and compassionate speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Shoreham (Mr. Luce). We must face the fact that the unemployment that we are experiencing is qualitatively different from that which we experienced in previous postwar cycles. The recession has been so deep that many firms have reduced overmanning and incurred the considerable expense of massive redundancy payments. They have found that they can produce as much as they did before, but with a much smaller labour force—in some cases as much as 30 per cent. smaller. It would be unrealistic to suppose that any foreseeable increase in demand, domestic or overseas, will persuade those firms to take back their redundant workers. Tragic though the situation is for the individuals concerned, we do no good to anyone if we seek to conceal those facts.

We must also face up to two other aspects. There is still substantial overmanning in many parts of the public sector and while we believe that technological advance will generate more jobs, rather than fewer, in the long term, the revolution in computers and so on will substantially reduce the number of white collar jobs.

The battle that we face for at least the next decade, and probably far beyond that, is on a different scale and involves different problems from anything that we have faced before.