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6.11 pm
Mr. Bruce Grocott (The Wrekin): I shall start with a point that will receive wide support. Members of Parliament are often described as unusual in one respect or another. We are especially unusual this evening in that it is 6.11 pm and we are discussing the Queen's Speech. We may well be the only people in Britain discussing it.
I confidently say that, in the pubs and clubs of the United Kingdom this evening, there will no hushed silence if someone suggests discussing the exciting proposals that the Government have put before us for the coming year. I am pretty confident that the viewing figures for "Coronation Street" will stand up well today compared with last Wednesday. Television sets will not be switched off as people discuss what the Government have in store for us.
In common with the vast majority of the people, I have only one interest in this Queen's Speech: that it should never come to fruition--not because, as I hope will be the case, one or two measures will be voted down but because I hope that the year in Parliament will not be completed as a result of the people at long last having the chance to make a judgment in a general election, and the sooner, the better.
No party in modern history, certainly since the war-- in fact, no party this century--has had quite the opportunity that the Tory party and the Government have had over 16 long years of experimenting with the economy and people of this country. What a dismal Queen's Speech comes at the end of those 16 years. This
should be a time of unbridled optimism because no Government have had the massive economic advantages that this Government have had.
It is not being wise after the event to speak of the massive income from North sea oil revenues. Anyone who was in the House in 1979, as I and other hon. Members were--and as you were, Mr. Deputy Speaker--knows that we all knew then that whichever party won the 1979 general election would, in all probability, be able to remain in power throughout the 1980s because of the inexorable increase in revenues from the North sea. We knew that even a Government of unique economic incompetence such as we have had would be able to shore themselves up with those revenues. If we add to that the privatisation proceeds from the disgraceful sale of our national assets--a dubious way of getting the money-- which now total £84 billion, we may think what an economic advantage that should have been to the Government.
It is said that one should never say "if" in politics-- and probably one should never say it in life--but I would not be human if I did not think, "If only the Labour Government of the 1970s had had the oil revenues that the Government had in the 1980s. If only that money had been available to invest in our manufacturing industry, schools, the infrastructure that our railways need and in our hospitals."
I will make one constituency point. I know that this is a general debate and I shall observe the rules, but if I could mention one item of expenditure, I would think of the overwhelming support at the Princess Royal hospital in my constituency for a consultant maternity unit. Unarguably, the population would sustain such a unit but, time and again, despite overwhelming public pressure, that request has been turned down. My word, the money could have been better spent than it has been by the Government.
Mr. Michael Spicer (South Worcestershire):
Anyone listening to the hon. Gentleman would think that public expenditure had gone down during that period; actually, it has been going up, especially on health.
Mr. Grocott:
The hon. Gentleman was here, as I was, in 1979. That is precisely my point. The Government have had a massive opportunity to make investments but have squandered it on paying for unemployment. That is where the huge increase in public expenditure has come from. The hon. Gentleman knows that. That is why we cannot have a sensible debate across the Floor. The matter will have to be resolved in a general election and the sooner, the better.
Anyone who discussed what needs to be done in our country today without starting from the point of acknowledging the failure of the past 16 years could not have a sensible debate. There is no recognition of that failure from the Government or in what the Prime Minister said. If I had to encapsulate the failure in two or three words, I would say that the legacy of the Government is that people, after all those oil-rich years, feel insecure and uncertain; they have forebodings about the future. We have little confidence in the future for our children. The trendy way to describe that is as the lack of a feel-good factor. That is what it all adds up to-- insecurity at work and concern about crime and a range of other matters.
I want to concentrate on what is for me the most important factor: insecurity at work. There is a lack of jobs and a lack of security in jobs for those people who have them. It will be painful to some hon. Members who were around at the time, but I make no apology for casting my mind back--as perhaps the Prime Minister should from time to time--to the 1960s and the contrast between today and then, when he and I were roughly the same age and starting to make our way in the world. We have 1960s nostalgia days now. Even Lord Lawson, I am told, goes to them sometimes and no wonder he is nostalgic about those days--nostalgic for the days when there were real opportunities, real apprenticeships and real jobs for people leaving school.
Tory Members often wonder why there is no discipline in our schools. One of the key reasons is that there used to be a sort of contract with children at school: if they worked hard, did their best and did well, at the end of a proper period of schooling there would be an apprenticeship or job for them. When that contract with our young people broke down, the series of social disasters--and I do not use that world lightly--that we have had was the almost inevitable consequence. The contract has been broken. Conservative Members seem to fail to understand it.
The figures on jobs are terrifying. I make no apology for mentioning the figures for my region. In September 1979, about the time that the last Labour Government left office, there were 99,200 claimants for unemployment benefit in the west midlands--3.9 per cent. of the work force. In September 1995, the figure was 203,700--8.1 per cent. of the work force.
The west midlands, the traditional heartland of manufacturing--engineering, industry and car-making-- escaped the worst of the recession even in the 1930s. The number of jobs in manufacturing industry in the west midlands in 1979 was 985,000; the figure is now 507,000. According to a recent survey, 10 million people--40 per cent. of the work force--have had first-hand experience of unemployment in the past five years. Apprenticeships were the golden opportunity for school leavers in the 1960s--in which I grew up--and the 1970s. In 1979, there were 346,000 apprenticeships nationwide; in 1995, there were 216,000.
Mr. David Nicholson:
I am afraid that I shall put to the hon. Gentleman a point that will be put to Labour Members again and again between now and the general election. If the hon. Gentleman's criticisms are so serious, why do Spain, which has been socialist for more than a decade, and France, which was socialist until a short while ago, have far worse levels of unemployment than this country?
Mr. Grocott:
It would be far more profitable if, instead of making international comparisons, with all the problems associated with them, the hon. Gentleman made national comparisons. He should just make the comparison between Britain now and Britain under the previous Labour Government.
Conservative Members get things so horribly wrong. The issue is not just the level of unemployment, horrendous though that is, but the problems that people in jobs experience--the quality of jobs and the lack of job security. There has been a massive growth in part-time and temporary work. An estimated 1.3 million people who
work part time or on a temporary basis simply do not want to work on that basis. We all have horrendous stories from our constituencies. I know of youngsters who have been employed in the same place for up to two years on the basis of a succession of weekly contracts, for heaven's sake. What basis is that for building an economy or for building a community in which people can feel confident about themselves and others?
Conservative Members totally fail to understand the problem of low wages. There are 1 million people earning less than £2.50 an hour and there are 300,000 people who earn less than £1.50 an hour.
I make all the allowances for opinion polls that others make. However, the following figures are so overwhelming that we should take note of them. I quote from the Gallup political and economic index poll of December 1994. The public at large were asked a simple question:
The Government's employment policies have profound economic effects. Unbelievably, the Government have managed to make us a deficit country in manufactured trade. Who could have believed that Britain, the workshop of the world, would now be in deficit in manufactured trade? The figures are familiar and I will not repeat them.
"From what you know, are most of the new jobs now being created skilled jobs requiring education and training, or are they low level, unskilled jobs requiring little or no training?" The "don't knows", whom one eliminates as one always does, amounted to 19 per cent. Some 16 per cent. thought that the new jobs were skilled jobs which offered hope. Some 65 per cent. thought that the jobs were low-skill, low-level jobs. That is why there is no feel-good factor around.
In the same poll, a comparable question was asked:
"there is a lot of talk at the moment about economic insecurity-- the feeling that people don't know whether their jobs, earnings or homes, are safe or not. From your own personal experience, do you think a lot of people are feeling economically insecure or not?" There were 2 per cent. "don't knows", 4 per cent. who said no and 93 per cent. who said that a lot of people were feeling insecure. Even allowing for sampling error, the figure was similar to the poll in an Iraqi general election. The figure is overwhelming and not surprising.
I give another revealing answer. The question was asked:
"Or again, from what you know, are most of the new jobs now being created secure jobs with long term prospects or are they short term and temporary jobs without any real prospects?" There were 11 per cent. "don't knows", 3 per cent. said that the jobs were secure and long term and 86 per cent. said that they were short term and temporary. Yet people wonder why there is no feel-good factor.
I worked in independent television before I came back to the House. The number of jobs there has gone down from 16,000 to 8,000 in the eight years since I left the industry. The Government tell me, "But lots of small, independent production companies are mushrooming and burgeoning all over the place." Those jobs are without training and without security, and no one can sensibly build a future on them. That is the Government's economic legacy to the next Labour Government.
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