GRAYSON: In the circumstances I feel—the Crisis of Unemployment is so great, when people are starving at this moment in the streets—that we must ignore those rules.
is it the case that a number of these men, known as season substitutes, are, in accordance with certain regulations, to be dispensed with at the end of the present month; in view of the Crisis of Unemployment now prevalent, will he take such steps as may result in the retention of as many of these men as possible until the winter 1615 season has passed, especially having regard to the fact that it is much more economical to employ such men as substitutes against overtime, sick absence, and annual leave, than the performance of these duties by overtime by the established staff; and will he consider in this connection the need for clerks in other branches of his Department, such as the postal and engineering, which could be met by the temporary employment of some of the permanent staff of the Central Telegraph Office and so create temporary vacancies in that office for a number of men who will otherwise be unemployed until next summer.
There was one branch of the Service that was continuing to use hand-sewn goods, but I learned last week that, in the height of This Unemployment Crisis, with hundreds of hand-sewers unable to get employment, it has been decided by the Department to cease making even that class of goods for the men of the Household Cavalry.
but, personally, I believe it to be actually the fact that the present state of industry in this country, with the Crisis of Unemployment, has now become a thing in which the capitalist and the employer is outside.
But I want to impress upon hon. Members why it is that you can only get out of an Unemployment Crisis in one way—that is to say, the demand for the product of industry must become an effective demand.
We also believe that the Present Unemployment Crisis is not due to anything the individual has done, and consequently it is a national problem.
People often talk as if the Unemployment Crisis was confined to this country.
I notice on referring to the Debates on the Second Reading of the Empire Settlement Bill that my right hon. Friend the Member for Sparkbrook said: "I am not recommending this policy of Empire Settlement as a panacea for the immediate Crisis of Unemployment with which we are confronted".
The right hon. Gentleman, when he introduced the Bill, stated definitely that this was not a panacea for 562 the immediate Crisis of Unemployment; but I believe myself that, if you take the long view, it has a most important bearing on our future trade relations with the Dominions.
I have just as much dislike for these Supplementary Estimates as anyone else in the House, but I should like to point out that some years ago there was a Cabinet Committee which decided that during this grave Crisis of Unemployment, if the Departments could usefully anticipate the undertaking of expenditure, they should do so to a limited extent.
What we want, and the only thing that can really save us and make an end to the Present Unemployment Crisis, is a greater production with the same wage.
it constituted an Unemployment Crisis.
No one would claim that this Bill would immediately solve the whole problem, but if something is not done now, when we have passed through the Unemployment Crisis of to-day to the better days probably we shall forget, and over a period of good years nothing will be done again.
They were originally devised, as all these remedies for, and efforts to cope with, unemployment were originally devised, in the days of the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs, when the great and terrible Crisis of Unemployment came upon 283 us in the deflation period after the Great War; and I do not think the Committee would run any risk in lending itself to these schemes.
The Bill which I am introducing is one which has become important because of the Unemployment Crisis.
The question I put to the Socialist Government is: "What will the people say to a Government, faced with an Unemployment Crisis of unparalled severity, and a programme loaded with urgent Measures, which sets out to spend months of its precious time trying to alter the law in respect of trade unions".
They were going to allow it because of Our Unemployment Crisis and suffering, and to give them a natural local pride in their own football team, but the directors have been compelled to reconsider things, and in place of lowering the price, they may have to raise it to meet the extra tax.
The only contribution to that which can be made in this House is the formulation of a short, simple programme of working class demands—perfectly rational demands for shorter hours to meet the Unemployment Crisis, for higher wages, for refusal to allow prices to rise —demands which are utterly incompatible with the maintenance of the capitalist system for a single hour; we must be perfectly clear about that—proposals which, if they are made, those who make them must be prepared to take over government, to smash the capitalist system and to build up a new system from the very bottom.
I beg the right hon. and gallant Gentleman not to regard the Department to which he has been appointed, and in which we wish him all luck, as a Department that lives for to-day; I beg him to regard it as one of the key Departments of to-morrow, when the Crisis of Unemployment may come.
Some people have told me that they fear that one of the reasons which has influenced the Government in closing these nurseries is that they see in it a means of solving the Unemployment Crisis, which I am not at all sure is not looming quite near.
] - to the serious nature of the Unemployment Crisis in Scotland?
Would it not therefore be of tremendous assistance in the Present Unemployment Crisis in Scotland if he were to speed the process of giving final approvals and consider extending the programme as it stands at the moment?
If a global sum were allocated by the Government for the purpose of expanding expenditure of this kind on the service, that would make a tremendous contribution in the Unemployment Crisis.
As this gratuitous intervention by the Board of Trade may, in the opinion of those best informed in Dundee, threaten the city with the Worst Unemployment Crisis for 20 years, will not the Prime Minister, if he wants the Government's policy on Scotland to be taken seriously, now invite the Board of Trade to abandon these proposals, and reconsider the whole matter?
I am sorry to dwell so long on the speech of the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East for more than one reason but he forcefully criticised the weekend speech of my right hon. Friend the Chairman of the Conservative Party and was less than fair in doing so, because after this period of Labour Government there is an Unemployment Crisis in the North-East.
I repeat that we have an Unemployment Crisis in the North East of England.
Faced with a serious Crisis of Unemployment, short-time working and redundancy - in other words, a crisis of confidence right across industry in Scotland - the right hon. Gentleman stood at the Dispatch Box with a silly grin on his face and tried to assure us that everything would be all right once we were in the E.E.C. I do not know what that has to do with the immediate problems that we in Scotland face or how they will be solved quickly.
The causes of this global Unemployment Crisis arefairly well known to us.
This crisis in Northern Ireland, is not just the current crisis of violence but the long-term Crisis of Unemployment, is overcoming dogma.
We know when we look at the Unemployment Crisis in the Third World that it is no good doling out charity if we are denying the developing countries the opportunity to develop their production where they can do so.
The Government have created an Unemployment Crisis in the development areas unprecedented in the post-war period.
The point about all these measures that were introduced and the changes in policy that occurred is that they followed a Crisis of Unemployment and, therefore, actions were taken by the Government which they had not originally intended to take.
I hope that if we are to hear from my right hon. Friend again we shall not, in a panic over the rate of growth in the money supply and the development of inflation, which may be quite horrific by the summer, try to revert to the sort of course pursued by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins) in 1969–70, when heratcheted the rate of growth in the money supply back to less than the growth of productive potential, and thereby plunged us into the Unemployment Crisis that we had in 1971.
Unemployment Crisis
We shall not solve the Unemployment Crisis unless we have controlled reflation, earlier retirement and a real effort to share work.
Mr. Wigley asked the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make available to Gwynedd county council additional funds to undertake work on improving the county roads in Gwynedd, in view of the Unemployment Crisis facing the county.
More than three-quarters said that profitability would go down, and that is the most important point of all, because there is not only a Crisis of Unemployment in the West Midlands.
Why do they not get together with the other parties in the House to try to thrash out solutions to Our Unemployment Crisis?
We should do so, however, bearing in mind that the country's Unemployment Crisis is the greatest economic crisis since 1945 and that there are in power a Government who, with almost every step they take, deepen the crisis, make it fiercer and longer lasting and knock away the props and assistance which we in the Labour Government sought to provide to protect our industry while the storm blew.
The Unemployment Crisis facing the country is so critical that the House of Commons should resolve to have a major debate on unemployment every month.
Has she taken into account the deepening Unemployment Crisis, based on the Department of Employment's figures, as described on the front page of the Financial Times today.
Since considerable chunks of the business announced by the right hon. Gentleman for next week do not seem to bear much relation to the problems of the British people, will he take special note of the proposal that I made to him yesterday that in future Business Statements he should consider the proposition that in view of the rapidly deepening Unemployment Crisis we should have a debate in this House every month after the unemployment figures have been announced?
We are faced with a Crisis of Unemployment because of the sheer numbers seeking jobs at a time when we need to be drastically improving our productivity with the greater use of machines, robots and so on.
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that what he has announced will, at best, only partly alleviate the greatest Unemployment Crisis that this country has known for half a century?
However, it really is not good enough for Opposition Members to rant on about the Crisis of Unemployment caused, in their eyes, by this Government and about the bitterness that this Government are creating.
With 13,000 people already unemployed, and with the city reeling from blow alter blow in an Unemployment Crisis without equal since the 1930s, what help does the Secretary of State offer Dundee?
There is a Crisis of Unemployment on Merseyside.
Finally, I thank the right hon. Gentleman for agreeing, as we have asked him to do on so many occasions, to debating in Government time the increasingly Grave Unemployment Crisis throughout the country.
Indeed, had they stood up and been counted at the right time, we might not have reached the Present Unemployment Crisis.
The Unemployment Crisis has now assumed the status of a national emergency.
Is he further aware that the Social Democratic Party has so far come up with no suggestions for dealing with the Unemployment Crisis?
It would seem that only the Unemployment Crisis has brought about a recognition of that need.
In dealing with the Crisis of Unemployment, I have taken the opportunity to improve our standards of industrial training.
I can only say that it should be, because we have a Crisis of Unemployment.
People now accept that a solution to the Crisis of Unemployment lies to a great extent in our own actions.
West Germany's Chancellor Schmidt warns of society being in danger with well over 10 million out of work and pleads with all, including the Prime Minister, to face up to the Unemployment Crisis with great realism before it explodes.
Most important of all, we must tackle the Unemployment Crisis in the city.
It would, however, be wrong to infer that hon. Members on either side have been unaware of the growing Unemployment Crisis, which is now reaching breaking point.
Just as the Government show a deep and dangerous complacency about the Unemployment Crisis at home, so they show an even deeper and more dangerous complacency about the state of the nuclear arms race.
The first was the Unemployment Crisis in London.
the second was the Unemployment Crisis in London; the third was the need to forge closer links between the borough councils, ILEA and the education committees of the borough councils in London; and the fourth was the multi-ethnic nature of London's culture.
The first was the need for community involvement in the arts; the second was the Unemployment Crisis in London; the third was the need to forge closer links between the borough councils, ILEA and the education committees of the borough councils in London; and the fourth was the multi-ethnic nature of London's culture.
It is the inflationary policies of previous Governments that are the principal cause of the Present Unemployment Crisis.
I suppose that a man of more compassion would not mention the Chancellor of the Exchequer's speech at all, but since the Prime Minister lacks sufficient courage to defend her record or policies it is his response to the Unemployment Crisis that I must examine.
Why do the Government wish to close skillcentres during an Unemployment Crisis?
It is, I suppose, for that reason that he failed to provide the remedy that the country so desperately needs to the Unemployment Crisis.
The Unemployment Crisis comes not from an imaginary reluctance to look for work but from a real inability to find it.
But Britain faces an Unemployment Crisis which requires more drastic measures, as the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) argued, if the country is not to be saddled with an army of the permanently unemployed.
The allocations will not help local councils in grappling with the Major Unemployment Crisis that has hit Wales-with more than one in five Welshmen out of work.
To understand the mounting concern in Bradford about rail services it is necessary to explain the city's Unemployment Crisis, the efforts that are being made to regenerate the city's economy and the city's anxiety about resources being deployed with a wrong sense of direction and priority.
during the next 20 years, and which faces a Massive Unemployment Crisis and serious problems in the housing and education services?
It did not even acknowledge, far less attempt to tackle, the three great crises now facing Britain, which are the Crisis of Unemployment, the crisis of poverty and the crisis of collapsing or collapsed manufacturing industry.
Before dealing precisely and directly with the question of the hon. Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Maples), I must deal with the Government's plans for tackling the Unemployment Crisis.
He continued:Before dealing precisely and directly with the question of the hon. Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Maples), I must deal with the Government's plans for tackling the Unemployment Crisis".
It knows that the Government's tax policy has virtually nothing to do with the needs of the economy, the Unemployment Crisis, the collapse of manufacturing industry and the increasing number of families who are living below the established poverty line but that it has everything to do with the Government's disarray and theTory party's disintegration.
Last week I spoke in a debate in which the depth of the Unemployment Crisis was fully revealed.
The Present Unemployment Crisis is no accident of history, as the hon. Member for Northfield confirmed when he said that it was not Government policy to keep coal mines open or to fortify and encourage the steel industry with investment and Government orders.
Those who have suffered most from the Unemployment Crisis fall into two groups.
Therefore, what should have been an objective operation of the Department of Employment to deal with the Unemployment Crisis facing the nation has been distorted by the way in which Lord Young has done his job.
May I press the Leader of the House for an early debate on the Unemployment Crisis and urge him to warn the Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Employment not to blame unemployment on the unemployed, the trade unions and even the weather, for if they were to do so that would be seen as grossly insulting to the 2 million men and women who are now unemployed?
Would that not provide him with an opportunity to explain to Scottish Members of Parliament the circumstances surrounding the current threat of the closure of Ravenscraig, Scotland's deepening Unemployment Crisis, and the failure of the Scottish office to provide training, especially for those who are physically and mentally handicapped?
Does the Secretary of State really believe that an extra 60,000 places - less than one month's rise in unemployment and less than 100 places for the unemployed in each of the constituencies - is a serious response to the Unemployment Crisis that we face today?
Secondly, are we not entitled to have a debate in Government time on the Unemployment Crisis in view of the record figures?
There is a yawning gap between the scale of the Unemployment Crisis facing Britain and the Government's pathetic response to it.
It allows hospitals to wither on the vine while covering the Government's back in a Crisis of Unemployment in facing the difficulties over the mining industry and the diktats of the Wakeham committee, which instructed the Secretary of State to cover up the closures, cutbacks and redundancies that are predicted.
They are Mickey Mouse schemes, which offer a shadow of hope to the unemployed but do not begin to meet the reality of the Unemployment Crisis that faces people in in other parts of London, in the south-east and internationally.
They are Mickey Mouse schemes, which offer a shadow of hope to the unemployed but do not begin to meet the reality of the Unemployment Crisis that faces people in
Before the Present Unemployment Crisis began, those policies saddled tens of millions of people with personal debt with which they now find it difficult to cope.
They expect the Government to respond vigorously and imaginatively to the Crisis of Unemployment.
I believe that those comments underline the fear that the Unemployment Crisis which still faces so many of our communities will not be overcome.
In south-west Wales, as throughout Wales, we have more than a Crisis of Unemployment.
It is experiencing an Unemployment Crisis, and there are getting on for 20 million people out of work in the EU.
From the Unemployment Crisis now facing this country, let me turn to the other aspect of the Secretary of State's responsibilities - the education system and our schools.
The reality is that Britain now faces an Unemployment Crisis.
My Lords, in concluding this short exchange of views, perhaps my noble friend will bring some noble Lords opposite back to reality by reminding them where the Unemployment Crisis began.
Let us take as an example the handling of the Unemployment Crisis, about which the Secretary of State has boasted so much this afternoon.
Her first response to the Unemployment Crisis is to reach for the history books and rewrite the statistics from the 1990s.
Every hon. Member who is present will have met victims of the Unemployment Crisis in their own constituency.
Scotland's Unemployment Crisis has become a national tragedy with 250,000 people out of work, and our young people are one of the hardest hit groups.
The Prime Minister runs away from engaging with health critics, he cannot face talking about the economy and he has no solution to the Unemployment Crisis.
The Budget not only fails the fairness test, but fails to tackle the Unemployment Crisis that my constituents and millions of people across the country are facing.
We know that growth is flatlining under this Government and that they have a significant blind spot for the motor that we have to get going if we are to generate the revenues needed to kick-start the economy, but setting aside their political unwillingness to tackle the growth deficiency in our economy, there is also a major Crisis of Unemployment.
Since we left government, the economy has slipped back into recession and we have seen high unemployment, including an Unemployment Crisis among young people.
That figure is really startling and lays bare the Government's complete failure to get to grips with the Unemployment Crisis.
We have heard less in the debate about flatling growth, the Crisis in Unemployment and under-employment, and the crisis in real wages and living standards.
If any Minister wants to come to my constituency and talk about how the private sector can be helped to grow, they will be very welcome, but so far that growth is not happening, and we face an Unemployment Crisis.
Apprenticeships should not be seen as a short-term fix for the Unemployment Crisis.