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Mr. Tony McNulty (Harrow, East): Get back to the motion.
Mr. Redwood: Labour Members should read the motion, because it is about the state of British business. [Interruption.] They point at the clock, but they have wasted time by making trivial debating points, whereas we are trying to highlight the damage being done.
I want the Secretary of State to tell us how many shipyards will close. Is he worried that 5,000 jobs are at risk from Kvaerner? What does he intend to do about that? Would it not be the final curtain on Labour's miserable industrial policy if the Govan yard were to close under the Government's economic stewardship? I learn that more bad news is just in: 200 jobs have been lost at Crane Fluid Systems in Ipswich.
Mr. Leslie:
The right hon. Gentleman loves it.
Mr. Redwood:
No, I do not love it; I hate it. I do not want my country to suffer and to do badly. I want the Government to listen to my warnings before another Crane Fluid Systems or another Kvaerner sacks staff and closes shipyards and factories.
The litany of woe from industry is all across the piece. The British Chambers of Commerce has said:
The Secretary of State sees mounting unemployment in his own constituency. The Foreign Secretary, having done so much damage to British business by his diplomatic blunders abroad, has had a huge increase in unemployment in his constituency. We now see the damage being done by
the national minimum wage and the 48-hour working week policies. One of the many people who have written to me said that the minimum wage was
All sorts of fiddles and diddles are being developed. Does the Minister know that some temporary employees who expected to get holiday pay are now told that their current rate includes it, and that they can take it or leave it? Does he know that lecturers with annual contracts are now told that they can have only 12-week contracts, so that they are not covered by the law? Does he know that there are so many holes in the policy that it looks like a sieve?
Does the Minister care that Business Strategies has forecast that 80,000 jobs will go because of the minimum wage? Does he know that an organiser for the GMB recently said that, because of the legislation, employees' hours of work are being cut, and that employees are being told to work harder for fewer hours to make the books balance? Another GMB official has said that some employers are making staff pay for their overalls and laundry to offset the minimum wage costs. I am sure that Labour Members did not want those effects, but they are the exact and inevitable consequences of sloppily drafted legislation, which, without those consequences, threatens people with the sack. We now see the emerging loopholes being used in an attempt to offset the job losses that otherwise would occur.
Now, 10 jobs are being lost for every hour of the Labour Government. Jobs are going across the country. If one makes things, one gets clobbered. If one elects a Labour Member, one gets clobbered. If one dares to elect a Labour Cabinet Minister, one gets clobbered particularly hard.
Since November, in Blackburn--which is meant to be looked after by the Home Secretary--unemployment has increased by 248, and many more jobs have gone. In Sheffield, Brightside, which is looked after by the Secretary of State for Education and Employment--a little joke there--unemployment has increased by 355, and many more jobs have gone. In Newcastle and Wallsend, which is presided over by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, unemployment has increased by 236. At least the Agriculture Minister is able to tell all the farmers that he is being entirely even-handed--they get the sack, and so do his constituents who work in factories.
Over at the Treasury, Ministers damage themselves as well as others. In Leicester, West, which is presided over by the Economic Secretary, unemployment is up by 349. In Pontefract, where the local Member of Parliament is full of good advice on how to run a successful economy,
unemployment has shot up by 365 since October. I therefore suggest that she should go back to the drawing board.
Yvette Cooper (Pontefract and Castleford):
I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for suddenly showing such concern about jobs in my constituency. I hope that he will answer a question on a matter that is very important in that regard. Does he agree with the desire expressed in a previous Opposition debate by the right hon. Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory) for a return to the previous Government's energy policy of replacing coal-fired power stations with gas-fired power stations--the effect of which would be to close pits and the coal industry, thereby losing 1,200 jobs in my constituency?
Mr. Redwood:
The previous Government's policy was kinder on the coal industry than the current Government's policy has been--[Interruption.] Labour Members do not do any thinking or reading. Do they not know that the present Government have tightened environmental constraints beyond the rather tight constraints introduced by the previous Government, the end result of which is that more pits will have to close now than under the previous, Conservative Government's policy? So the hon. Lady has scored an own goal with that one and completely misunderstood the important point.
Mr. Redwood:
I must make progress, as we are running out of time in this rather short but very important debate.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham said, bankruptcies are rising. In the first three months of 1999, bankruptcies soared by 62 per cent. in the east Midlands and by 40 per cent. in both Wales and south-west England. A KPMG survey showed that receiverships are up by almost half in the north-east. Even a much better new deal than Labour's could not keep pace with the industrial devastation that we see daily on our television screens.
The Labour Government's answer to that high pounding of industry is to take £5,200 million out of business with their windfall tax; £14,250 million outof business in the first Budget; and £4,900 million out of business in their second Budget. They then had the audacity to tell us that we should be grateful for the "tax cut". It is not so much a tax cut, more a spin--but there is little spinning going on in the British textile industry after those Government policies. All we see is closure after closure.
The Conservatives want the Government to change course, and we propose a five-point plan for industrial recovery. First, the Government must cut business taxes. That will leave more money in the hands of business for investing in new plant, designing new products and creating new jobs. Secondly, the Government must stop imposing all those new rules and regulations and admit that their labour market legislation is an expensive shambles. They must either repeal it or exempt all small firms, which could then generate the jobs that we need.
Thirdly, the Government must tell the Bank of England that manufacturing matters. We need interest rates and an exchange rate that work for British business. The Opposition have often called for more sensible interest rates than those imposed by the Government and the Bank, and if our advice had been heeded at the time, the damage would have been limited.
Fourthly, the Government must get a better deal for British business from Brussels. They must use any influence that they may have to avert a trade war with the United States of America, and to press for the trade ban on British goods to be lifted. They must warn our partners that the beggar-my-neighbour devaluation of the euro must stop because it is destroying jobs in Britain.
"Manufacturers continue to experience a deteriorating sales position at home . . . The knock on effect of the manufacturing slowdown is being . . . felt on jobs, the sector's employment figure has slumped to its lowest level for six years".
The "Engineering Trends" survey was equally gloomy. It said:
"Total new order intake fell again in the first quarter, having consistently declined since the second quarter of 1998."
It forecasts that more jobs will go. It says:
"Labour shedding became prevalent in the second quarter of 1998"--
after the Government came to power. It continues:
"Since then the trend has become more emphatic . . . Employment in the industry is forecast to decline significantly both this year and next."
Let us hope that labour shedding spreads to the electorate on 6 May. An awful lot of Labour votes and Labour councillors should be shed. The British public can pass their judgment on the job losses and the industrial failure that we see all over the place.
"great for those who will be receiving it but not so good for my son, and I am sure many more that are being made redundant because their employers cannot or are not prepared to pay it".
The lady continued:
"My son was devastated when he was told that he is being made redundant because of it."
It is all very well for Ministers to say that employers are not allowed to do that, but the fact is that employers are doing that because they have no choice. One company was quoted in the Daily Mail as saying that it has cut its work force from 50 to 30 to get ready for the minimum wage, which it could not otherwise afford.
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