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Column 545
House of Commons
Tuesday 9 May 1995
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[ Madam Speaker-- in the Chair ]
MADAM SPEAKER'S STATEMENT
Madam Speaker: I have to report that the House attended Her Majesty on Friday last in Westminster Hall with an Address, in reply to which Her Majesty was pleased to make a most Gracious Speech. I would cause my words in presenting the Address and Her Majesty's reply to be entered upon the Journals of this House.
ROYAL ASSENT
Madam Speaker: I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified Her Royal Assent to the following Act:
Agricultural Tenancies Act 1995.
Oral Answers to Questions
EMPLOYMENT
Labour Statistics, Warwickshire
1. Mr. Pawsey: To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many people are now employed in Warwickshire, or the appropriate travel-to-work areas, excluding Coventry; and how many were self-employed in the same area in 1990-91. [21616]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. James Paice): The labour force survey estimates there were 239,000 people in employment in the county of Warwickshire in autumn 1994, and 228,000 in spring 1992. I am afraid that the comparable information for 1990-91 is not available.
Mr. Pawsey: My hon. Friend's reply shows that the number of jobs in Warwickshire has grown by about 700 in each of the past 18 months. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is a clear sign that the recovery is on track? Does he further agree that any plans to introduce a national minimum wage, as proposed by Opposition Members and the trade unions, would cost us jobs?
Mr. Paice: My hon. Friend is entirely right about the recovery, and we are entering another year of sustained growth. He is also right about the minimum wage. Every time the Opposition equivocate on the question of what level the wage should be, every time they evade the issue of differentials and every time they publish another consultation document, they demonstrate that they know
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the truth, as we do--minimum wages destroy jobs. When will they have the courage either to answer the questions or to admit that they were wrong?Mr. Mike O'Brien: Is the Minister aware that unemployment in Warwickshire has risen from 7,300 in 1979 to 12,130 this month? Does that not show that what destroys jobs in Warwickshire is not a minimum wage, but the Tory Government?
Mr. Paice: Unemployment rose under the previous Labour Government, and no Labour Government have left office with unemployment lower than it was when they came into office. Unemployment has risen throughout most of the industrialised world during that period, in which we have been through two serious recessions. We are recovering, and we are leading the world in that recovery.
Mr. Alan Howarth: I welcome the encouraging news which my hon. Friend the Minister has been able to report to the House on employment in Warwickshire. If, however, the Government will not allow adequate investment in education in Warwickshire, we must expect that there will be 172 fewer people employed as teachers in the county during the current year. Given the importance of education to the employment prospects of our young people, we must then expect that fewer Warwickshire children will get jobs--whether self-employed or any other kind--in the future. Will my hon. Friend use his powers of persuasion with those in the Treasury to encourage them to look beyond the ends of their noses?
Mr. Paice: My hon. Friend knows that expenditure on education is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education. We must study how well money is used. There will always be more claims on the money than can be met by the available money. The job of every responsible authority is to make sure that the money is properly used. We delegated that power to schools so that the people at the coal face can use the money to the best advantage of the school.
Unemployment Data
2. Mr. Alan W. Williams: To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what representations he has received from the Royal Statistical Society on the accuracy of unemployment data; and if he will make a statement. [21617]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Phillip Oppenheim): I met the Royal Statistical Society working group studying the accuracy of official unemployment statistics and had lengthy discussions with it. We are currently considering its conclusions.
Mr. Williams: In that review of unemployment statistics, the Royal Statistical Society concluded that the general public do not trust Government data on such statistics or find them convincing in any way. It suggested that the claimant count should no longer be used as the basis for the monthly figures and proposed instead that the quarterly labour force survey, which has much wider international recognition, should be published monthly. Will the Government seriously consider that recommendation and accept the society's criticisms of their fiddled figures?
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Mr. Oppenheim: The hon. Gentleman should read the report carefully. Its main conclusion was not that the claimant count should be discontinued. It said that the count should be continued, but that more prominence should be given to the labour force survey, which the TUC called "fully reliable". As the hon. Gentleman and Labour apparently agree and as that count shows unemployment at very similar levels to the claimant count, perhaps Opposition Members should stop making nonsensical claims that there are really 3 million or 4 million unemployed people.Mr. Anthony Coombs: Will my hon. Friend confirm that the labour force survey, which the TUC says is totally reliable, showed that last year the numbers of those in employment rose by 347,000 and that two thirds of those were full-time jobs? Is it not typical of Labour Members that, when there is that sort of good news, they choose to ignore it and to call into question the statistics--through the survey--that others, including the trades unions, regard as entirely reliable?
Mr. Oppenheim: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The labour force survey shows that employment rose strongly last year and that the vast majority of the jobs created were full and not part time. Labour Members say that they support the labour force survey, which we have promoted all along. We have increased its frequency from once every two years--its frequency under Labour--to four times a year. That survey shows that unemployment is not 3 million or 4 million, as trade union leaders and Labour Members have been claiming for so long, but 2.4 million, which is almost exactly the same level as the claimant count that they say is fiddled.
Mr. McCartney: It is astonishing that the Minister can stand there and claim that the Royal Statistical Society report backs the Government's claims for their figures. The report said that the Government's use of the claimant count was "both unfortunate and unhealthy"--
Madam Speaker: Order. I think that the hon. Gentleman is aware that Opposition and Back-Bench Members are not allowed to quote directly. Could he paraphrase, please?
Mr. McCartney: I will paraphrase it, Madam Speaker. In civil service jargon, it is fiddled. Since 1979, four out of 10 jobs in manufacturing have been lost and nearly 3 million full-time jobs have been lost to the economy, at a cost of £13 billion. If those jobs have been replaced at all, it has been by part-time, semi-skilled or unskilled, poor jobs. When will the manufacturing industry in this country have the feel good factor?
Mr. Oppenheim: Perhaps I can educate the hon. Gentleman. In the 1970s, when Labour was in power--that heyday of British
manufacturing--British Steel was the world's largest loss maker, British Leyland was the butt of music hall jokes, British Airways was rated below Aeroflot, British manufacturing output fell, our productivity was the lowest in the OECD and our growth in manufacturing productivity was also the lowest. Since then, we have been producing more manufactured goods of higher quality, which is the best guarantee of more high-quality jobs in future.
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Equal Pay
3. Mr. Austin-Walker: To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make it his policy to promote equal pay for women part-time workers. [21618]
The Minister of State, Department of Employment (Miss Ann Widdecombe): The Equal Pay Act 1970 already provides for equal pay for equal work, irrespective of the number of hours worked.
Mr. Austin-Walker: Is not the reality that Government policy has undermined fair pay for part-time workers, more than 80 per cent. of whom are women? Does the Minister not recognise that the abolition of the wages councils, without creating a single extra job, has increased the pay difference between low-paid men and low-paid women? Would she now agree with the Equal Opportunities Commission that the introduction of a national minimum wage would increase and promote fair and equal pay and go a great way towards improving the financial position of women in employment?
Miss Widdecombe: Such topsy-turvy reasoning can have come about only because the hon. Gentleman is dizzy from watching the policy somersaults of his leader. The abolition of the wages councils has increased pay in sectors formerly covered by councils. A minimum wage would cause unemployment, which would almost certainly be disproportionate among women.
The fact that it would cause unemployment has been acknowledged by the Leader and deputy Leader of the Opposition and forms part of an OECD report, yet Opposition Members do nothing except hang on to what amounts to a deceit perpetrated on the electorate. They promise jam tomorrow but will not say at what level the wage will be set, how many jobs will be lost, and in what sectors they will be lost. That is why I talk about topsy-turvy reasoning. I suggest that Opposition Members do some serious thinking about the damage that their policies will do to women.
Lady Olga Maitland: Does my hon. Friend agree that women's part-time wages have increased more than men's in the past three years? Does she also agree that women welcome the opportunity to work part time, because it fits in more easily with their family lives?
Miss Widdecombe: My hon. Friend is right. It is worth studying what is happening to women's pay as a proportion of men's since 1970.
Miss Widdecombe: I shall explain why 1970--and 1975 and 1979. In 1970-74, during which period, Opposition Members may just recall if they have done their studies, we had a Conservative Government, women's pay as compared to men's rose by 9 percentage points. We then had a Labour Government and it rose by a measly 1 percentage point. Since then, we have had a Conservative Government and it has risen by a further 6 per centage points, and is now at its highest level ever. Opposition Members should apologise to women for their shameful record and applaud ours.
Ms Short: May I explain to Ministers why the Government are so deeply unpopular and despised by the British people? Are they aware that most of the jobs created in the British economy in the past 10 years have
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been low-paid, service sector jobs because of the Government's strategy of encouraging low-paid employment? The effect is that most of the jobs have been taken up by women, and women's work has been undervalued and underpaid with no access to promotions or pensions. Increasingly, men are being squeezed out of employment or forced to take temporary part-time work.Does the Minister not understand that it is in the interests of the British economy that we change that, introduce a national minimum wage-- [Hon. Members:-- "Oh!"] The Government should listen to the people, and they will then know why they are so unpopular. A national minimum wage would improve the status of women in work, stop men being squeezed out of employment and encourage employers to invest instead of compete by wage cutting. People would then feel more confident and the Government would be a little less unpopular.
Miss Widdecombe: It ill behoves a party that has not won an election for 21 years to preach about popularity. I am amazed that Labour Members have not learnt the lesson of the past, which is that brief and temporary popularity does not lead to success at general elections. After the next general election, they will all be back in their places, still trying to perpetrate deceits on an electorate whom they will not have deceived.
Since 1979, women's pay, hourly and weekly, full time and part time, has increased faster than that of men. There are 1.5 million more women in work than there were 10 years ago. The greatest increase has been among women with young children, which is a tribute to our child care policies. There has been a huge rise in the number of self-employed women and a trebling of the number of women in law and accountancy. May I suggest to the hon. Lady that she does her homework properly?
Miss Widdecombe: If my answer was long, it was because the hon. Lady's question was not only long but packed full of inaccuracies from start to finish.
Labour Statistics
4. Mr. Dunn: To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many people are currently in full-time employment; and if he will make a statement. [21619]
The Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Michael Portillo): Estimates from the labour force survey for the winter of 1994-95 show that there were 19.2 million people in full-time employment in Great Britain. That is an increase of 243,000 since spring 1993.
Mr. Dunn: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for that reply. Will he tell the House how many of those people in full-time employment would remain in full-time employment if a minimum wage were introduced and if the strikers charter of the Labour party were adopted?
Mr. Portillo: Of course, if we went back to strikes, that would have a profound impact on job creation and inward investment. I recently heard the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) promising trade union rights that were not enjoyed under Wilson, Callaghan or Attlee- -in other words, not only rolling back all the reforms of Conservative Governments but promising
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rights to trade unions that have never been enjoyed before. That is the expense of the deal between the Labour party and the trade unions.As for the number of jobs that a minimum wage would destroy, that depends on the level of the minimum wage, and the Labour party will not tell us the level. That is the most cynical deceit of the British electorate. To come before the people of the country and tell them that they should have a minimum wage but not declare its level is deceitful, and it is hypocrisy. If it were set at the level at which the TUC would like it, it would destroy 750,000 jobs.
Ms Harman: Will the Secretary of State recognise and face up to the fact that is evident to British people--that, as permanent full-time jobs are going, all that people can find in their place are temporary and part- time jobs? Will he admit that the figures show that there are 122,000 fewer full-time jobs in our economy than there were two years ago, and 300,000 more part-time jobs? More and more people are being forced into part-time work, not of their choosing but because the full-time, permanent, secure, decently paid jobs they want are not there in a Tory economy.
Mr. Portillo: It is most interesting that, on the day that the hon. Lady launched a document on the national minimum wage, she is not prepared to mention the subject in the House of Commons. Having given a press conference in which she refused to announce the level of that minimum wage, she refuses again to tell the House of Commons the level at which she would set the minimum wage.
What the hon. Lady did come here and do was ignore the facts, because in the past year, full-time jobs have increased by 204,000 and part-time jobs have increased by only 92,000. Where do those figures come from? They come from the labour force survey that the Labour party has advocated this afternoon, which the TUC tells us is entirely reliable. Why did the hon. Lady take the opportunity to tell the House of Commons that she is prepared to destroy jobs by setting a minimum wage, and why did she not tell us its level?
Mrs. Peacock: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that, in the survey to which he refers, only 14 per cent. of those interviewed said that they would prefer to be in full-time employment rather than the part-time employment that they were undertaking at that moment?
Mr. Portillo: My hon. Friend is right. Every Government in Europe want to encourage some part-time employment because, for instance, they want women to be able to combine a job with their family responsibilities. In Britain, thanks to the flexibility that we enjoy, 6 million people are able to combine family responsibilities with part-time work, and, as my hon. Friend said, the vast majority have a part-time job because they want one. The curiosity is that now the Labour party wants to destroy those part -time jobs by introducing the minimum wage. It is the most miserable cynicism, and Labour Members should be ashamed of themselves.
Allerton Outreach Team
5. Mr. Madden: To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many people, to date, have been placed in employment by the Allerton outreach team. [21620]
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Miss Widdecombe: As the hon. Gentleman knows, Bradford council manages the Allerton outreach team, but I understand that, up to 26 April 1995, 65 people have been placed into employment.
Mr. Madden: Why, then, is the Minister's Department so mean and niggardly in its treatment of the Allerton outreach team? Will she acknowledge that, in finding more than 70 jobs--that is the latest figure-- the team has saved the state £1 million per year? Will she urgently arrange for her officials to investigate the reasons for the team's success and, more importantly, ensure that two full-time posts are funded properly by her Department, so that my constituents who are desperately looking for work may be assisted by the team which has been so successful in finding jobs in the past few weeks?
Miss Widdecombe: Notwithstanding the rather provocative language that the hon. Gentleman used at the beginning of his question, he has raised an important constituency point. I congratulate the Allerton outreach team on its performance. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the Employment Department funded the team on a pilot basis. As we have completed that pilot funding, the training and enterprise council has now agreed that it will contribute £10,000 towards the salary of the full- time official and £10,000 to meet the cost of vouchers for training. The Employment Department will continue to assist with vacancies and other services of that type.
The hon. Gentleman will be aware that we originally funded the team through the programme development fund but, as that has now gone into the single regeneration budget, the Employment Department no longer has any responsibility for it. However, Bradford council can bid against those funds, so I suggest that the hon. Gentleman should address his question to the council.
Mr. Barron: Does the Minister not recognise that withdrawing funding from the scheme has created chaos similar to that which the Government have created elsewhere in the labour market? The lack of job opportunities in Bradford and insecurity at work nationally are only a part of the Government's failure. In the Yorkshire and Humberside region, 55 per cent. of male temporary workers and 40 per cent. of female temporary workers want, but cannot find, permanent work. What will the Minister say to the more than 61,000 people, and their families, for whom the Government's policies mean lost opportunities, lack of work and insecurity?
Miss Widdecombe rose --
Mr. Lewis: Make it quick, your broomstick is being clamped.
Miss Widdecombe: Well, before my broomstick is clamped, I suggest that the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron) should study a few figures. Why does he not tell the people of Bradford that unemployment has declined from 9.9 per cent. this time last year to 8.7 per cent currently? Why does he not point out to the people of Bradford the Government's jobfinder's grant pilot and the grants that are available under that scheme, our workwise and 1-2-1 assistance and our work trials assistance? Why does he not try to bring hope to the people of Bradford and to the people of Yorkshire and Humberside instead of always trying to depress them? I
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have said it before and I will say it again: one can tell how well the economy is doing from the length of Opposition Members' faces.Labour Statistics
6. Mr. Janner: To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will reconsider the Government's method of assessing employment statistics. [21621]
Mr. Oppenheim: The Employment Department has two measures of unemployment: the claimant count and the International Labour Organisation standard labour force survey. We always recommend that people should look at both sets of figures to get a good idea of what is happening in the labour market. The LFS of unemployment stands at 2.4 million.
Mr. Janner: Does the Minister agree that the number of people whom the statistics show to be unemployed depends entirely on the Government's current definition of the word "unemployment"? As the words "claimant count" inevitably exclude no fewer than 10 categories of people who should be included, the Government's definition is very unlikely to be grossly exaggerated.
Mr. Oppenheim: With all due respect to the hon. and learned Gentleman, he should know that we have no direct control over the standard for the labour force survey. That standard is set by the International Labour Organisation, and we do not deviate from it. If he does not like the claimant count, by all means let him concentrate on the labour force survey, which shows unemployment standing at 2.4 million. The TUC supports that survey and so, apparently, does the Labour party. Why then do Labour Members persist in claiming that unemployment is really 3 million or 4 million, when the international standard labour force survey clearly says that it is 2.4 million?
Mr. Simon Coombs: I recognise that the international labour force survey has some drawbacks, but does my hon. Friend at least accept the fact that according, to that survey, the United Kingdom has the highest level of employment in the European Union? In that context, does he agree that there is a need for extreme caution in the dealings that he and his colleagues have with their European counterparts, so that they do nothing to discourage other countries in the Union from continuing with their disastrous policy of the national minimum wage?
Mr. Oppenheim: My hon. Friend is right. The international standard figures clearly show that Britain has lower unemployment and higher employment than the other European Union countries that have a national minimum wage set at a reasonably significant level. The Opposition should consider that fact carefully before pretending to the less well-off that there is some simple cost-free way of increasing their pay, especially as the Labour party does not even have the guts to tell them what the level of the minimum wage will be, so that they would know what it would cost in lost jobs.
Ms Eagle: Will the Government now take on board the
recommendations of the Royal Statistical Society report and make the labour force survey monthly? The Government could carry on collecting the claimant count figures but replace the definition of unemployment--the claimant count, which simply counts the number of people
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on benefit, rather than the number who are unemployed--with the definition in the labour force survey. Will the Government now do that?Mr. Oppenheim: We certainly do not disagree with the suggestion of the RSS that the labour force survey should command more attention. If the Opposition prefer to quote the LFS figure rather than the claimant count, they will. However, if they do, I must warn them that they will find that the LFS showed that unemployment in 1979 stood not at 1 million but at 1.5 million and that, as I have said before, it now shows the unemployment figure as 2.4 million. The problem with upgrading the survey from quarterly to monthly is that that would cost £10 million. If the Opposition are prepared to commit a future Labour Government to spending £10 million on upgrading the LFS to a monthly figure, let them give a policy pledge here. If they are not prepared to make such a pledge, they should stop complaining that we are not prepared to do so.
Workfare
7. Mr. Harry Greenway: To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what new studies he is conducting into workfare; and if he will make a statement. [21622]
Mr. Portillo: None at present. The essence of any system of benefit for unemployed people must be that the recipients are actively seeking work and are willing to undertake work when it is made available, but I do not believe that the state should be the employer of last resort.
Mr. Greenway: What does my right hon. Friend make of rumours that the Labour party is planning to set a minimum wage of £180 a week? [Hon. Members:-- "Oh!"] Whatever they say, those are the rumours. Does my right hon. Friend recall that Beveridge said that people should be on benefit for six months, and that that should be followed by work or training for work with a view to long-term employment, as the real means of saving the lives of people in the right sort of way?
Mr. Portillo: On my hon. Friend's first point, I congratulate him on being the only person who has any idea of the level at which the Labour party would set the minimum wage, because the Labour party simply will not tell us. On his second point, of course it has been understood since the time of Beveridge that people must be willing to demonstrate their availability for work. Ultimately, that must mean that one can test that availability by providing something for unemployed people to do and expecting them to do it. I do not want to quibble about language and say whether that is workfare or not. It is not what I would call workfare, but it seems a perfectly reasonable proposition.
Mr. Eastham: Let me assure the Secretary of State that 2.5 million people in the United Kingdom desperately need a job. As for workfare, three weeks ago members of the Select Committee on Employment were in America, and we found that, because of the Reagan Government's policies, workfare did not exist there. One of the problems that has been acknowledged is the fact that the mothers of one-parent families need training and, more than anything else, some child care. Is that not a fact that the Government have never faced?
Mr. Portillo: I am not responsible for policies in the United States; I am responsible for policies in this
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country. I am proud of the service that the Employment Service provides to claimants, helping them to stay in touch with the labour market and become more employable and providing them with opportunities to improve their training and make themselves attractive to employers after long periods of unemployment. Those are the policies that we follow, and we have been opposed in those policies day after day and week after week by the Labour party.Sir Ralph Howell: In view of the acknowledged success of the workstart pilot schemes devised by Professor Snower, will my right hon. Friend institute a workfare scheme, which is also supported by Professor Snower and myself?
Mr. Portillo: We are continuing with the workstart scheme. From April this year there will be 5,000 places at a cost of £30 million. The principle of the workstart scheme is that we provide a subsidy to firms to take on people who have been unemployed for a long time. My right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has announced that from April 1996 there will be a rebate of national insurance contributions for one year for employers who take on the long-term unemployed. That is another means by which we provide a subsidy to employers to take on people who have been without work for a long time.
Long-term Unemployment
8. Mr. Barry Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what new measures he proposes to tackle long-term
unemployment. [21623]
Mr. Paice: In April, we introduced four new measures to help long- term unemployed people and we extended three others. More than 240,000 places will be available on those programmes in this year alone.
Mr. Jones: A strategy is needed to get thousands of unemployed aerospace workers back into their industry. What will the Government do to help the workers at Raytheon Jets, who have been told that the production of jet aircraft is to be transferred to the United States? What help will they give the workers at Raytheon Jets, at least in saving some of the jobs that are scheduled to go to the United States? It is a loyal, productive and highly skilled work force that deserves the Government's help.
Mr. Paice: The hon. Gentleman knows that the details of employment policies, and particularly training policies, in Wales are the responsibility of my right hon. Friend Secretary of State for Wales, as I presume the factory is located there. Obviously, it is a matter for grave regret when any company decides to relocate outside Britain. Fortunately, far more companies want to relocate to Britain rather than take their jobs abroad.
Mr. Sykes: When the Minister writes to Mr. Chirac to congratulate him on consigning French socialism to the dustbin of history, what measures will he suggest to the French President? Which regulations will he recommend that the French get rid of first? Will it be the job-shedding social chapter, the 48-hour week, the minimum wage or the ridiculous works councils? Will my hon. Friend tell us which one?
Mr. Paice: The French people have already demonstrated their good judgment in electing President
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Chirac. I am quite sure that he will follow that by recognising the veracity of our position, which is that the social chapter is designed totally to destroy jobs.Mr. Chidgey: Does the Secretary of State recall that in 1993-94 one in seven training and enterprise councils showed a decline in job prospects for scheme leavers and some 48 per cent. of all training scheme leavers were unemployed after six months? Does he expect that the figures for 1994- 95, which I trust will be available soon, will tell a similar story of failure, and if so, will he give the House a commitment to amend policy urgently, in order properly to readdress the unacceptable level of long- term unemployment in Britain?
Mr. Paice: The hon. Gentleman, who has attended Employment questions for a long time, knows full well that we have already made significant changes to our policy on training for work precisely because we were not happy with its outcome. We were not happy with the number of people getting into jobs. That is why we have refocused it and concentrated help and funding on TECs precisely so that people will get jobs out of them. We expect a significant and sustained improvement in the outcome of training for work.
Unemployment
9. Sir Thomas Arnold: To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what is the latest unemployment figure; and if he will make a statement. [21624]
Mr. Portillo: Seasonally adjusted claimant unemployment in the United Kingdom was 2,346,200 in March 1995--a fall of 632,300 since December 1992.
Sir Thomas Arnold: While I welcome those figures, does my right hon. Friend acknowledge that the supply side changes of recent years mean that there is still plenty of spare capacity in the economy without taking undue risks with inflation?
Mr. Portillo: Yes. I believe that, by investing in education, as we do in Britain, by encouraging employers to see the benefit of training and by investing large sums of taxpayers' money in training we can improve the quality of the work force, so that a larger number of our people can participate in work, without taking risks with inflation.
Ms Harman: Instead of boasting that the problem of unemployment in Britain has been solved, why does not the Secretary of State recognise that it still remains a major problem? Does he admit that, in the past five years, 11 million people have been out of work and, as a result, have had to claim benefits; that long-term unemployment remains a problem, still hovering around the 1 million mark; and that of all the G7 countries, we are the only one to have seen no employment growth since 1979?
Does he recognise that unemployment is a problem not just for the unemployed but for those in work who fear that their jobs too might be the next to go and know that, if they lose their jobs, the Government will kick them in the teeth with cuts in training and benefit? While the right hon. Gentleman will not tell the truth about the true size of unemployment in Britain, it is no wonder people do not trust the Tories.
Mr. Portillo: I make no complacent claims about unemployment in Britain. I believe that it is too high. But
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I also believe that it is lower than the European Community average because of the policies that we in Britain follow; that a higher proportion of our people are in work than in any major country in the EC because of the policies that we follow here; that a higher percentage of our women are in work than in any major European country because of the policies that we follow here; that we have seen a faster fall in unemployment than any major EC country because of the policies that we follow here; and that, in particular, the countries where the levels of unemployment are highest and where the levels of unemployment among young people are highest are those countries in the EC that have adopted and applied the minimum wage--the policy that the Labour party wishes to impose upon Britain which would have the same result of destroying jobs, in particular for our young people.
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