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Unemployment in the UK

Our debate this evening takes place against the backdrop of increasingly serious economic difficulty. Over the past few weeks, we have seen great turmoil in financial markets, and Members on both sides of the House share concern that it risks turning into turmoil in labour markets. Unemployment is a scourge. We have to work together across the House to confront enormous economic difficulties, which none of us can wholly understand, to try to do our best to ensure that they do not turn into the unemployment and human misery that the debate is all about. I am afraid that by the end of tonight's proceedings, we will all have painted a rather depressing picture of what might be coming down the track at us. When it comes to the problems that we want to confront, the starting point is not really one of which the Government can be proud. It is not a proud boast that after 10 or more years of economic prosperity, unemployment stands at ““only”” 1.7 million. Let us compare that with the situation in many of the years that speakers have mentioned tonight; it is triple what was seen as an absolutely unacceptable level of unemployment in the 1970s. The starting point is not a happy one, which means that what will follow may be extremely serious. The climate for future employment is not healthy, and one reason why is that after the 10 years to which I have referred, our economy and fiscal position should be in a much better position to cope. We should now have lower taxation. Instead of Government borrowing, we should have a surplus. We should have higher savings and a massive pensions pot. Sadly, we have none of those things, and in my view, unemployment is relatively high. We have higher taxes, more regulation and the worst budget deficit in the developed world. We have squandered a decade of growth, and that will make the pain far greater when we have to face what is around the corner. We have had a lively debate. The right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) began the Back-Bench speeches and spoke in his inimitable style. I thought that he showed insufficient appreciation of the ferocity of the business cycle—a ferocity that his constituents will yet have to withstand. My hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) spoke about jobcentre closures. He also mentioned empty property rates, which I shall come on to in a minute. I thought that the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Nigel Griffiths) was unduly vitriolic, and looked only to the past. Our concern tonight is about the future. My hon. Friend the Member for Harwich (Mr. Carswell) was especially convincing on the Prime Minister's view on immigrant workers, but the victor ludorum tonight is the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Devine), who is temporarily out of the Chamber—it is certainly a brave man who becomes his psychiatrist. The mistake that he made, when levelling accusations against us, was insufficiently to appreciate the fact that so many of the problems of the '80s—high tax, inflation, underinvestment, restrictive practices and loss of competitiveness—were caused by what had gone before. I am not sure whether the Secretary of State was even born then, but he can always turn to the history books. My hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Mr. Crabb) proved that Labour's monopoly of concern is not safe in its hands. The hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen)—I am sorry that I missed a bit of his speech—was, once again, looking back. My hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone) showed a rather more accurate grasp of history. The hon. Member for Glasgow, South-West (Mr. Davidson), once he had decomplexified everything, showed a much greater sense of realism, which he injected into our debate. I am the Conservative spokesman for the Department for business. It is vital that the UK has a strong business centre, and that Whitehall speaks up strongly for business, if we are to counter the scourge of inflation. I fear that the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, whose Ministers I face across the Chamber, has not done as well as it could have done over the past 10 years. There have been 38 Ministers and seven Secretaries of State, and the Minister with responsibility for small firms has changed on average once every 18 months. The construction portfolio alone has changed six times since 2001. We are talking about the Department that needs to oversee all the economic activity that ultimately gives us all our wealth, which all other Departments then spend. Unfortunately, I will not even be able to face my opposite number across the Floor of the House. For these few days, until he is duly ennobled, I can accurately call him Mr. Mandelson. It is a great pity that I will not face anyone of Cabinet rank across the Dispatch Box. When we had a Cabinet Minister in the Lords, be it Lord Carrington or Lord Young, there was always a Member of this House of Cabinet rank whose voice in Cabinet from the Commons would always be there, but we do not have that under the future Lord Mandelson.