Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Wales – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 1 March 1993.
Mr Ron Davies
, Caerphilly
12:00,
1 March 1993
The Secretary of State has another record. He has 134,000 unemployed people in Wales and one in three of them is long-term unemployed. The total cost of that unemployment to the Welsh economy is £1·2 billion. Those are the records of reality about which the Secretary of State chooses not to speak. Does not he realise that the time for his con tricks and cosmetics is past? If we are to tackle the problem of the long-term unemployed we need a completely new approach and a strategy that will renew our economy and revitalise our manufacturing sector.
Secretary of State was originally the title given to the two officials who conducted the Royal Correspondence under Elizabeth I. Now it is the title held by some of the more important Government Ministers, for example the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.