Conduct Of The Right Honourable Member For Bristol West

EDM number 1076 in 1995-96, proposed by Mike Gapes on 01/07/1996.

That this House notes that the Right honourable Member for Bristol West, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury was found by the Scott Report to have misled Parliament over arms sales to Iraq; further notes that in response to an Oral Question from the honourable Member for Ilford South on 27th June the same Minister was asked to confirm that in 1979 approximately half the number of people were out of work as currently, and that five years ago, the workforce in this country was 26 million, but that currently it is only 25 million; is concerned that the Minister claimed in reply that there are more people in work now than there were then; but notes that this is not true and that the Government's own statistics confirm that the total number of unemployed claimants in March 1996 was 2,187,000, some 96 per cent. higher than in March 1979 and that in March 1991 the workforce was 28,715,000 of which 26,619,000 people were in work, whereas in March 1996 there were only 27,917,000 in the workforce and of those only 25,731,000 were in employment; recognises that these figures show that the Right honourable Member was incorrect and that there are 798,000 fewer people in the workforce and 888,000 fewer in employment today than five years ago; and deplores this further example of the misleading of Parliament by this Minister.

This motion has been signed by a total of 19 MPs.