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here. A refusal to take up such a scheme would be clear and unambigious evidence that the unemployed person was not actively seeking work.We have made considerable progress over the past few years. I remember the time when the old Manpower Services Commission did not want its schemes to be used as a means of testing whether someone was actively seeking work. In those days the test was availability for work. The commission said that it did not want reluctant recruits. It did not want people participating in its training schemes only because the alternative was loss of benefit. That is another classic example of the creaming-off problem. The MSC, for example, wanted those who were already well on their way to finding jobs. A positive way in which we can help to deal with the problem that is posed by those who lose the will actively to seek work is to use Government training schemes on a selective basis to test whether individuals are actively seeking work and to ensure that if they are not, their bluff can be called through the offer of a place on a training scheme.
As I have a constituency engagement early this afternoon, I shall not be able to remain in the Chamber until the end of the debate. It is--
Mr. Tony Banks : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Banks : I asked the hon. Gentleman to give way--I have listened carefully to his thoughtful speech--because if I manage to catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker, I shall refer to him. He said that it is not the role of government to stimulate the labour market or to create employment. I think that he said that. He suggested that it is the role of an efficient labour market to provide jobs. Perhaps he will take the opportunity to explain why the Japanese have recently announced a $87 billion programme of public sector work to try to stimulate both their economy, which is in a much better state than ours, and the labour market generally.
Mr. Willetts : I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention because it gives me the opportunity to clarify what I said earlier. Obviously I did not make the point sufficiently clear. The Government have enormous responsibilities in terms of employment and the labour market. The Government's responsibility is, first, to ensure that there is the right economic framework. That means ensuring that the growth of total spending in the economy is neither unsustainably rapid nor negative. We now have growth of nominal GDP running at about 3 per cent.
Another responsibility of government is to ensure that the labour market works properly. That is why we need trade union law reform. We must ensure that people are better off in work than out of it. It is a responsibility which calls for supply-side reforms, which the Government pursued in the 1980s. I hope that they will continue pursuing them in the 1990s.
It is the question of Government intervention that causes me to part company with my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, North. I do not think that the Government have a direct role to intervene in and run the labour market, and themselves to link idle hands and unmet needs by employing millions of people who would otherwise be unemployed. If the Government intervene in
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that way they will be nationalising the problem. It is, however, the Government's responsibility to make the labour market operate freely.The hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks) referred in his intervention to the Japanese. It is true that the Japanese Government have produced a reflation package that is aimed at dealing with the problems of their economy. The hon. Gentleman says that the problems facing the Japanese economy are not as severe as those that face us. Actually, the collapse of property prices, asset prices and financial confidence in Japan is a more serious problem for the Japanese economy than that which faces our economy. In any event, in the autumn statement there is a set of measures which, I am confident, will bring economic growth next year.
If the Japanese are to succeed in their enormous programme of extra Government spending, they will do so only because of years of prudent control of both spending and borrowing. It is impossible for the Japanese Government to borrow for more than 10 years ahead. That is ruled out by the Japanese constitution. As a result, any Japanese Government who are faced with the problem of recession have the enormous advantage of having much less public sector debt than that of most other Governments. A lesson to be learnt from their reflation package is that when years are good we should run surpluses and pay off debts so that when years are bad there is some scope for the issuing of gilts. I am pleased to say that in these terms the British Government are in a much better position than that in which the American Government find themselves.
Mr. Tony Banks : I relish the opportunity of entering into a debate with the hon. Gentleman on some future date on the comparative states of the Japanese and British economies. Unfortunately, it is not possible to do that today, but I hope that the opportunity will present itself.
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, although Japanese property prices have fallen alarmingly, Japanese manufacturing capacity is so strong that the impact on the Japanese economy has been nothing like the impact of the fall of property prices in the United Kingdom? It is the underlying strength of manufacturing industry in Japan that places it in a much better position economically than that of the United Kingdom.
Mr. Willetts : The hon. Gentleman is right to draw attention to the strength of Japanese manufacturing industry. Sadly, we cannot say that Britain's industrial performance in the post-war period matches that of Japan. If, however, we wish to learn lessons from the Japanese industrial performance, we must recognise the importance of having a large and vital small-business sector, and of the Government staying clear of detailed intervention in the labour market and rewarding innovation and entrepreneurship.
Many of the stories that we hear about the role of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry--MITI--and Japanese Governments in their country's economic growth are not borne out by the facts. The Japanese had a great plan for their car industry ; there was to be one Japanese Government-sponsored car firm that would lead the Japanese industrial revival after the war. The entrepreneurial spirit of Japanese industrialists was such that they did not fall in with the grand MITI plan. Instead, several individuals built up their own car firms. They
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established a much more dynamic industry than would ever have been created had there been adherence to the original strategy. I do not believe the claim that Japanese manufacturing and industrial success has been derived from so-called industrial strategies. Many of the claims are put about by MITI. They are not, however, borne out by the real evidence of what actually happens in Japan.Before the hon. Member for Newham, North-West intervened I was bringing my remarks to a conclusion. Many of my hon. Friends--there is a galaxy of talent on these Benches--have important contributions to make to the debate, which was initiated so wisely by my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, North. I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak in the debate.
11.28 am
Mr. Ray Powell (Ogmore) : I congratulate the hon. Member for Norfolk, North (Mr. Howell) on securing this debate on the work force--a debate which could last five hours. Had it not been for a mistake discovered in the Table Office, I would have introduced a motion today that would have lasted five hours as well. When the ballot names were called out, I, like most hon. Members, understood that my name had been called. I know that we are not supposed to name names, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I am sure that you will forgive me if I do so today. My name, Ray Powell, was called by the Speaker. I am not often successful in this place at catching the Chair's eye, perhaps because I am short and need to stand on a seat to be seen. Be that as it may, it seems that the name Ralph Howell was called that day. I have listened to the tapes, and bad as my hearing is, the tape is clearly audible--I could not hear the name Ralph Howell being called. Six days later, and after I had been invited to introduce a motion this morning, the Clerks told me, five minutes before midnight, that they had made a mistake. Unfortunately, millions of pensioners had already been told in the intervening six days that I was going to initiate a debate on their plight and their fears--probably to last for five hours on a Friday. So they were all very disappointed, as were my staff, who had worked like the clappers to organise the debate.
I am given to understand that this is the only time the Table Office has ever made a mistake of this magnitude. Knowing how ultra-helpful and efficient its staff are, I accepted their explanation and went on to raise a point of order with Madam Speaker the following day. She kindly informed me that there had been a mistake ; she apologised, and told me that I might be lucky in the raffle taking place a matter of seconds later.
I could have told the Clerks how to ensure that I won that raffle, but I could not get to them so to advise them. So once again, after 14 years, I have failed in my attempts to secure a debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Norfolk, North on being much luckier than I am. I listened to 49 minutes of his introductory speech--
Mr. Ralph Howell : I was in the House when the draw was announced, and I heard Madam Speaker call the ticket that I had just signed. I was in no doubt that my name had been called, and it is rather strange that there was any misunderstanding. I am extremely sorry that the hon. Gentleman lost so much time preparing his debate. I
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wondered why the Whips had still not told me how to proceed some days after my name was called. Perhaps that explains the delay.Mr. Powell : I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has explained his position. I feared that there had been some sort of ploy in the Table Office, prompted by the Government Whips. Just a week before, they had used strong-arm tactics, and I thought that they might be transferring their attentions from the dissidents to the Table Office--but I accept the hon. Gentleman's explanation.
Unfortunately, pensioners will not have a five-hour debate on their problems, their fears and their poverty
Madam Deputy Speaker : Order. The pensioners have done quite well so far, but I must remind the hon. Gentleman to address the subject of today's debate.
Mr. Powell : I was just coming to that.
I should like to tell the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) that, in the days when a Labour Government set up the Manpower Services Commission, the then Conservative Opposition strongly objected to it. Since 1979, when the Conservatives took office, there have been many changes in the schemes and organisations designed to find jobs for the unemployed. One hon. Member who is in his place today will well remember the Select Committee on Employment, on which I served some years ago. Like me, he will recall the many changes introduced by this Government. Many of those who have tried to run schemes to help the unemployed have run into difficulties. The system of training and enterprise councils gives many people a licence to milk the unemployed and to profit from their difficulties. These vultures set up private schemes in my constituency to do just that. It is high time the Government took action to remove that licence from them. If we have money to spend on this grave problem, it should be spent on people who are out of work, not on those who profit from them.
In the past few weeks, the construction industry has issued a great deal of literature. Only yesterday, we heard that thousands are being made redundant in the cement-making and brick-making industries--yet we know for a fact that people in almost every constituency in the land are homeless. Some of them are homeless because they are out of work and cannot pay their mortgages, others because they can only afford to rent, but no local authority can build houses for tenants because of Government-imposed cuts in local government finance. As a result, construction workers are out of work and the homeless are not being housed.
I admire the hon. Member for Norfolk, North for studying the subject of workfare. I can well understand, too, why some of the people to whom he has spoken over the years have rejected his proposals. They probably found them rather bizarre. I would applaud any scheme that helps people who are out of work back into work--
Mr. Hawkins : Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the main reason why people are homeless, especially in areas where his party is in control of local government, is that many Labour authorities have failed to refurbish their housing stock? If all the council housing stock that is not
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available for occupation were made so, the homelessness problem would be fairly well wiped out in most Labour authority areas.Mr. Powell : I doubt that the hon. Gentleman's contribution or his analysis of the problem of the homeless is one to which I want to waste time responding. I invite the hon. Gentleman to my consitituency where, prior to the 1973-74 local government reorganisation, we had the largest rural authority housing association in the Pen-y-bont rural district, which built more houses in that area than were built anywhere else in the country. If the licence to sell people their council houses at a knockdown price had not been introduced and promoted by a Conservative Government, many more people on the housing waiting list today could be accommodated. That housing stock no longer belongs to the council but is privately owned.
Lady Olga Maitland : Will the hon. Gentleman allow me to intervene?
Mr. Powell : Allow me to reply to the last intervention.
Lady Olga Maitland : On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Would it not be correct to point out that the hon. Gentleman is talking about homelessness, not workfare?
Madam Deputy Speaker : The hon. Lady anticipated a point that was going through my mind.
Mr. Powell : Perhaps it would have been more proper, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the hon. Gentleman who intervened in my speech to be told that --rather than for me to be called to order for answering him.
Madam Deputy Speaker : Order. The hon. Gentleman noticed that I did not do so, but I said that I was considering that point.
Mr. Powell : With all due respect, Madam Deputy Speaker, I was not taking the matter up with you, but was responding to the second intervention while replying to the first.
Perhaps we may move on from the problems of the homeless, although I could speak at some length, and remain in order, about the number of people in the construction industry who have been put out of work by Government policies--engineers, architects, and other technicians who have no jobs as a consequence of Government policy.
In 1979, I was elected to represent Ogmore, which at that time had an unemployment rate of 3.7 per cent. The population was 105,000, and the electorate was 83,000. Two and a half per cent. of those out of work were unemployable because they suffered from silicosis and pneumoconiosis and were genuinely unable to work. In addition, we accept that 1 per cent. of the population might not want to work even if it were made available--and I think that most of them voted Tory at the last election. Nevertheless, everyone, including the Government in the past, accept that 1 per cent. element.
Although that situation changed, some people in Maesteg in my constituency, the unemployed male population--consistent with what the hon. Member for Norfolk, North said about people being unemployed for 12 months--have been unemployed since 1983.
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Lady Olga Maitland : Can the hon. Gentleman say whether they are actively seeking work?
Mr. Powell : I am given to understand that they are obliged actively to seek work if they are to receive unemployment benefit. They are told by the DSS officer that if they do not actively seek work, they will not receive unemployment benefits. They are often invited to consider jobs that do not relate at all to their qualifications, but they are compelled to do so. Therefore, they are continually looking for work.
In 1981-82, the Government decided to close several collieries in my constituency, which meant putting 7,000 miners and many supporting workers out of work. The Government also declared redundancy for 12, 000 workers when they started shedding workers at the Margam steelworks. In the course of 12 months, 7,000 miners, 12,000 steel workers, and 1,000 others were made redundant in my constituency. In 1983, the last remaining colliery-- St. John's--which employed 7, 800 miners, was involved in the miners' strike and threatened with closure. Within a matter of months after that strike, it was closed. It is no use the Government funding factories to produce dolls' eyes or teddy bears, when the unemployed are industrial workers used to a colliery. We want more than money and that kind of investment--we want community programmes of the kind introduced by a Conservative Government in 1982-83. Because of the extent of unemployment in my constituency when that scheme was devised, jointly with a trade union and others we formed an organisation named CATO--Community Activities and Training in Ogmore--to help produce jobs for the unemployed under the community programme.
That scheme lasted 10 years, until the introduction of Mid Glamorgan TEC, when it was refused further funding because it was not a private organisation run for profit, but instead allowed industrialists to contribute in the way that they wanted.
Lady Olga Maitland : Can the hon. Gentleman explain what happened to the 20,000 who were made redundant? Of course that was a great tragedy, but the Government introduced many training schemes. Did those people take up those schemes, and what occupations do they have today?
Mr. Powell : I was on that very point. I was talking about the CATO training scheme, which, under the community programme, had 650 trainees. We took the lease of a redundant hospital at Blackmill and created a day centre for the elderly, where caterers were trained to produce the midday meals not only of the elderly at that centre but of those who were brought to it just to have a day meal.
We created also a building programme for bricklayers, carpenters, plasterers, plumbers and other tradesmen. We trained not only carers for the elderly but caterers and building trade workers. A multifarious training programme was undertaken to help the elderly in particular to care for themselves in their own homes.
The current proposals for employing people in workfare is bizarre. In the CATO programme, the section for the young was organised at training workshops in Llynfi in Maesteg. In that workshop we had trained 280 of the young people when a Minister visited us. I forget the Minister's constituency, and his name, but I remember
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that he was involved in a fracas with a taxi driver at the Tory party conference. His successor as the Under-Secretary of State for Employment, who is in the Chamber, will know to whom I am referring. That Minister visited the Llynfi training workshop to open a new section. He was told by the management and the staff-- [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Stretford (Mr. Lloyd) is reminding me that the Minister concerned was the hon. Member for Teignbridge (Mr. Nicholls)--so now we all know who I am talking about.The management and those involved with training the 280 young people on the 12-month course had changed it to a two-year course ; there was a 12-month extension. The Minister was told that 95 per cent. of the previous group of trained young people aged 18 had places in employment before they left their training at Llynfi. The Minister said that he thought that the youth training in his constituency was good, but that it could not find jobs for more than 60 per cent. of the trained young people.
CATO's objective was not only to train young people but to contact local industrialists who were prepared to offer them jobs when they had completed their courses. It is important that people in training do not find that they have served a period of apprenticeship only to find themselves without a job at the end.
I can speak with the benefit of some experience, having chaired CATO, and spent 10 years organising training for unemployed people. That training was essential in Ogmore, because of the massive unemployment created over a three-year period. I doubt whether we shall ever return to the position that we enjoyed in 1979, with a mere 3.7 per cent of people unemployed, most of whom were unemployable.
The time has come for a new method of audit for the present system of Government training schemes. I know that the Comptroller and Auditor General told the chairman of all the TECs last November that they were personally responsible for ensuring that the money was spent properly. But there is also a need for further careful examination--especially of the Mid Glamorgan TEC, which I believe has some explaining to do about where its money is spent. Who gets the profit from the Government grant aid?
If the Government continually cut the funds available for training schemes, they will continue to make life even more difficult for those who genuinely want to train people. Organisations such as Mid Glamorgan county council are doing a worthwhile job--
Lady Olga Maitland rose --
Mr. Powell : Let me finish my sentence.
Organisations such as Mid Glamorgan county council are doing a worthwhile job training the work force, so they should be afforded the funding, or local government funding should be extended to help them to assist the unemployed.
Lady Olga Maitland : I am sorry to intervene yet again, but while the hon. Gentleman is talking about the sum which the Government are providing for training schemes, does he not agree that it was made clear in the autumn statement that the Government were altering the arrangements for such schemes, rather than making reductions? That is an important distinction.
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Mr. Powell : With all due respect, I am beginning to wonder who is making this speech--the hon. Lady or myself. Nevertheless, I accept her intervention. She talks about the Chancellor's suggestion about how to tackle the problem of funding training, but we have had so many changes over so many years that the people involved in training the work force in this country have become more and more disillusioned. People who have devoted their whole careers to training now find themselves not only out of work but with little chance of finding themselves another job in training.
Funding should be made genuinely available--not, I repeat, for those who have invested money to make public limited companies out of the training schemes, but for people who are training with funding from Government and other public sources. If that happened, and the Government did not allow people to make any profit out of it, the money might be well spent. But if the money is given to those who have set up plcs to run TECs, it will go back to the profiteers rather than helping unemployed people.
We talk about trying to get jobs for the unemployed, but very few Conservative Members would talk about the poverty and degradation of families of people who are made unemployed. But those who represent constituencies such as mine travel around the valleys seeing miners, who have worked for 30 and 40 years in the collieries, out of work at 50. They are pushed on to the dole, with no chance of another job in another colliery, because there are no collieries in Wales left to which they could travel to work.
After 40 years in the coal mines, they find themselves without a job. At 50, they have no chance of getting a job, of getting out of the house and out of their wives' way. That causes misery. At 55, having worked all their lives to provide for their families, to buy their homes and the contents of their homes, they find that they are pushed out of work, with no chance of another job. Moreover, their sons and daughters are in a similar predicament ; having gained degrees, they come back home to look for work and find that they cannot get jobs either.
Mr. Clifton-Brown : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Powell : I was in full flight then, but I will give way.
Mr. Clifton-Brown : I thank the hon. Gentleman for that. Is it not precisely out of care for families with unemployed members that my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, North (Mr. Howell) wishes to introduce a scheme of workfare--to provide people with work if they want it?
Mr. Powell : I wish the hon. Member for Norfolk, North well in any sort of scheme that will provide jobs for people who are out of work, because I see the misery that unemployment creates. People may be trained as consultants, and they may have spent 10, 15 or 20 years becoming consultants. People can even become brain specialists, and they still find themselves without jobs in the national health service. Some people have devoted their lives to the national health service, and now they find themselves redundant. If the Government go ahead with their plans, we may find that many more trained and qualified people in the London area are unemployed. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Newham,
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North-West (Mr. Banks) could say a lot more about the people whom the Government intend to make unemployed in the foreseeable future.Lady Olga Maitland : The hon. Gentleman spoke about people moving out of their jobs. It is interesting to see that the culture has now changed. People recognise that, although they have been in one career for 20 years, it does not mean that they have to stay in that career for the rest of their lives.
Does the hon. Gentleman see any comparison between the position in his constituency and the coal mines that closed in Scotland? The middle-aged generation in Scotland have now been successfully retrained for the computer industry to such an extent that there is now an area known as Silicon Glen between Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Mr. Powell : I am pleased that people in Scotland are getting jobs. I was talking about 7,000 miners and 12,000 steel workers being put out of work in one constituency within 18 months. If those 20,000 people were retrained in the computer industry, they would supply the whole industrial force for that industry. I very much doubt whether such retraining would be a solution in my constituency although it has happened in Scotland.
The Government should set their sights on trying to solve the problem of the unemployed. The points of order at 11 am today dealt with further mass redundancies. The Government do not solve the problem. I rarely read the Financial Times . I do not read it to find out whether my stocks and shares are going up or down because I do not have any. The headline today in the Financial Times is "Industry sheds 10,000 jobs." I read my local paper, the Western Mail, to see whether I have been quoted. I rarely have been. Its headline reads : "Black day as 9,000 lose jobs in Wales". Unemployment in Wales has increased by 150 per cent. since the Government came to office.
It is no good the Government saying that they have run down the steelworks because there was over-employment. I accept that there may have been some over-employment in the steel industry, but the seven pits in my constituency were closed when there was still a demand for coal.
We recently debated the Government's bizarre proposal to close 31 pits. As I have been involved in the mining industry and as I represent a mining constituency, I attended the debate throughout. My father was a miner, and I well understand the heartache of miners who may lose their jobs if the 31 collieries are closed. Some 30,000 more jobs may be lost.
The energy in those mines would be sealed in, and it would be difficult for future generations to tap it. Mining engineers have told me that, when collieries are capped, gas and water make it practically impossible and economically unwise for future generations to recover the energy resources underground. Twenty-one pits are under review and will be the subject of the inquiry, and 10 are to be closed--so much for the Government's promises in that debate. I feel for the miners and their communities because, over the past 30 years, my people have suffered. There is no chance of their finding work in my area.
I am a senior sponsored member of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers. The proposals on shopping could lead to an increase in part -time workers. I wonder whether the hon. Member for Norfolk, North can enlighten me on the following point. At present, some
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people work only on Sundays. They are employed part-time to work in shops that are open illegally. Can such people be considered legally employed when the shop in which they work is breaking the law by being open? Such an employer may be small or large. Such an employer may be Tesco or Sainsbury.If the Minister for Industry, the right hon. Member for Hove (Mr. Sainsbury), had been here today, he might have told us, because of his family connections, whether Sainsbury provides the proper rate of pay for workers on Sundays. Such companies are not legally obliged to pay the recognised rate because it is illegal to trade on Sunday. Companies could be paying wages below those legally required in the present system.
This week, the Government have proposed to do away with the wages councils which protect the underpaid and the under-privileged, including the low- paid shop workers. There will be no protection for them. Is the hon. Member for Norfolk, North prepared to ensure that, under his proposals, workers would be protected by councils similar to the wages councils?
Lady Olga Maitland : The hon. Gentleman referred to wages councils. I get the impression that, in trying to support a minimum wage for Sunday workers, the hon. Gentleman is trying to deny other people the chance of getting work. Surely that is not consistent with his desire to get as much work as possible for as many people as possible.
Mr. Powell : I take the hon. Lady's point. A person may be obliged to work on a Sunday and may be getting a Sunday rate at a store that is legally open under the Shops Act 1950. Shops in seaside resorts are among such shops. I am not talking about shops that may open if the Government's proposals are accepted. Some people may be able to work only on a Sunday and only in a shop that is open illegally. They have no legal protection when they go to work, because the shop should not be open.
Mr. McLoughlin : Does the hon. Gentleman accept that wages councils do not set rates of pay for Sunday work?
Mr. Powell : That may be so. I know the history of this Government since 1979. Some workers were protected under previous wages councils which were taken out of the system in 1979, in 1982 and in 1985. The Government have reduced the number of wages councils three times. Most of the councils protected poorly paid people, including those in the shopworkers' union, which I represent as its senior sponsored Member. During the past 13 years, the extent of the protection afforded by the wages councils system has diminished. I cannot understand why there is a need to dispense entirely with that protection.
I have referred to shopworkers, although not at great length or in great detail. I had intended, Madam Deputy Speaker, to raise a point of order with you at 11 o'clock, but I could see that you were inundated, and I felt that, if I did so, I might not catch your eye immediately after the debate resumed. I wonder whether you will take the point on board now. I was going to ask whether a Minister was to make a statement about the Government's intentions and proposals on Sunday trading.
We read about the proposals in the Evening Standard and elsewhere in the press, and for six weeks we have been promised a statement. It is suggested that the Government will show us three different Bills and ask hon. Members to
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toss a coin to decide which one should be introduced. The details have not yet been disclosed to us, however. In the run-up to Christmas, the Minister has a responsibility to let shopworkers know whether the shops in which they work will be allowed to open on the Sunday before Christmas with the blessing of the Home Secretary, or whether they will be made to close under the Shops Act 1950. Like 4 million others, those people are seeking work. They are prepared to undertake menial tasks and will even go so far as to work on Sunday at very low wages, because they need the additional income. I have described the problems in my constituency. I am eager to welcome to my constituency hon. Members who think that they have problems, and to show them the dereliction that has been wrought there by 13 years of Tory Government. I will take such hon. Members to the homes of people who have been made unemployed and show them the meanness of monetarism and the aggravating effect that it has had on a good work force. In short, I will show them the result of 13 years of Tory policy, and why the Government are in such an economic and industrial mess.12.13 pm
Mr. Michael Trend (Windsor and Maidenhead) : I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, North (Mr. Howell) on securing the debate. He spoke of his work, which has extended over many years, as a cockshy. I beg to disagree with him. His Adam Smith Institute text of 1991, entitled "Why Not Work?" is no cockshy ; it is the locus classicus of all those interested in the work force, and for many years to come it will provide the starting point for serious consideration of the subject.
Workfare is a difficult word, prone to many different interpretations. I shall use it in the broadest sense. In that broadest sense, workfare has interested many Conservative Members in recent years. That is, in part, a tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, North. Two former Members of the House who have now been translated to the other place have recently written about it. In his "Unfinished Business", Lord Tebbit adopts almost precisely the scheme that my hon. Friend proposes, and according to the press, workfare is also mentioned in Lord Lawson's memoirs--although I must say that, in that substantial book of more than 1,000 pages, I have not yet been able to find the section in which he is said to recommend workfare. The President of the Board of Trade has also written fluently on the subject, from a slightly different point of view. It is a subject of great interest, but one involving problems of definition. We must accept that, for the moment, the broad definition will suffice.
There are many different types of workfare in existence throughout the world. The example of America has again been cited today. The American system is very piecemeal : in some areas it is highly developed and in others it is fairly crude. I am sure that we will hear about Sweden which has a highly involved and expensive system. In considering Sweden, we must bear in mind the difficulties into which the Swedish economy has run in recent years and weigh up workfare as part of the Swedish Government's policy as a whole. In the past my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, North has referred to Switzerland, which is an interesting case. Switzerland has a programme that runs along similar lines, although I am sure that my hon. Friend would agree
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that Switzerland is a very particular country which goes its own way and cannot afford us a useful example. Moreover, as my hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) said, we should concentrate on our own case.The central matter that we are discussing is unemployment. It is to the credit of my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, North that he has managed to change the question from "Why work?" to "Why not work?". He has placed greater emphasis on work than on unemployment. He gives us no hand- wringing, only progressive ideas for the future. Unemployment is a blight on lives--on individuals, families, the community and on the whole national spirit. There was a time when unemployment was a very severe blight. One has only to think back to the last century and the novels of Charles Dickens. At that time, there were two sorts of unemployment--the unemployment of young men who lounged about on sofas wondering how best to spend their patrimony, and the shocking unemployment of the almost utterly dispossessed at the edge of the community who had little opportunity to better their conditions.
In more modern times--and this is relevant to workforce--the state has taken a much more active role in providing work for people and benefits for those who cannot work. The starting point has been Beveridge's famous report "Social Insurance and Allied Services", which appeared in 1942. Lord Tebbit, that distinguished former Secretary of State for Employment, writes :
"those who uphold the doctrines of Beveridge are remarkably selective in their reading of his work."
It seems to me that there were two great principles in Beveridge's work. He spoke of an attack on want, but went on to say : "Want is only one of the five giants on the road of reconstruction and in some ways the easiest to attack. The others are Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness."
The second central theme of the report is this :
"Social security must be achieved by co-operation between the state and the individual. The state should offer security for service and contribution, not stifle incentive, opportunity, responsibility." It is clear from those passages that Beveridge understood the possibility of what we now call the dependency trap coming into existence. I think that Beveridge thought that his fellow country men were much sturdier individuals than we think our country men to be today. He was offering people the opportunity to make a start for themselves, but he was not denying them the all-important self- respect and responsibility that all individuals need. That report contained the beginnings of the relationship between the individual and the state, which has been called the reasonable bargain. There are obligations--of the state towards the unemployed, but also of the unemployed towards the state. Human society has obligations towards the individual and the individual has obligations towards human society. That is one of the key features of the workfare scheme. It is also part of the great traditions that inform western society--for example, the Judaeo-Christian tradition, but also the traditions of other religions.
I want to quote from St. Paul--from Norman Tebbit to St. Paul is a great distance--who wrote to the people of Thessalonia that,
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