World Species Congress

Debate between Lord Grayling and Toby Perkins

Tuesday 14th May 2024 Westminster Hall

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

Thank you, Sir Charles. It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) on securing the debate, and on her contribution.

The contributions today encourage us to focus on not only stemming the tide of species lost, but actively taking steps to promote nature’s recovery. I welcome the Reverse the Red coalition’s hosting a day of reflection about how we help promote species diversity and growth. It is fantastic that such a broad intersection of activities and initiatives will be on offer. It is precisely the kind of collaborative action that will be required, from the classroom to the United Nations General Assembly hall, if the world is to halt decline and restore nature.

In 2022, COP15 in Montreal agreed stretching but necessary targets on nature. Those present agreed four goals and 23 targets to halt the reverse and loss of nature globally by 2030. That was groundbreaking and, let’s be honest, it was tough, but the world is now in a position where those deeply ambitious goals are necessary if the human race is to tackle the dual climate change and biodiversity crises. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) said, any plan is only as good as its implementation. We live in one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, despite the Government’s setting out fairly ambitious targets on reversing nature’s decline.

The Office for Environmental Protection’s latest report, published earlier this year, showed that the Government are way off track on all their key goals related to climate and the environment, including for biodiversity loss. We also know that the global 2011-20 Aichi biodiversity targets agreed by COP10 were emphatically missed across the board. That simply cannot go on. A Labour Government would look to grow nature-rich habitats— like as wetlands, peat bogs and forests—for families to explore and wildlife to thrive. Championing unique habitats, such as wetlands, will help restore species which call them home, such as the curlew to which the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Sir Bill Wiggin) referred. Curlew numbers dropped by 64% between 1970 and 2014, and the curlew is currently on the red list for extinction risk.

The Labour party will go further and help protected areas, such as national parks, to become wilder and greener, thus ending the destruction of nature, and restoring and expanding habitats. Before this year’s COP16, in Colombia, each party that signed up to the Montreal agreement must publish national biodiversity strategies and action plans. Those plans must show how each country will individually contribute to the agreed goals. As we have seen with the failure of previous initiatives, those strategies will be crucial to making good on the warm words with which all countries have been happy to associate themselves.

We are led to believe that the UK’s plan will be split into four discrete strands for each of the devolved nations, as well as including additional plans for overseas territories and Crown dependencies. That makes sense. It is crucial that plans are sufficiently granular and specific to local context so that they can guide action on the ground, and get results.

However, there is anxiety across the sector that the plan for England will be—as my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham said—a rehash of the misfiring environmental improvement plan, which has been panned by the OEP, and is more an aspirational wish list than a real plan. What can the Minister say to contradict that verdict? Will the Government lay out a detailed road map for achieving those targets or will it be left to the next Government? Will the Government produce a bespoke, detailed plan for England that includes specific actions required to reverse species decline by 2030?

[Chris Grayling]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Mr Perkins]

I do not think I quite have time.

[Mr Perkins]

With a bit of generosity, I will give way.

[Chris Grayling]

The hon. Member is talking great sense, but he is missing a couple of examples of the actual things a Labour Government would do. What, in practical terms, are we not doing that he would do?

[Mr Perkins]

There are a number of things. Let me continue and I hope I will respond to the right hon. Gentleman’s question.

The nations of the United Kingdom all play host to a rich diversity of natural life. It is our privilege to live on islands in which almost any natural life or landscape one could wish for is present. But, if Britain is to live up to the ambitious goals set at a national level, our strategies and action plans must make sure that each nation is working hand in hand, moving towards the same goals, and not working at cross purposes. Will the Minister confirm that each strategy will set out the framework for co-ordination between all nations and define the mechanisms by which the respective environmental Departments will collaborate?

In December 2023, analysis conducted by Wildlife and Countryside Link—the largest coalition of wildlife and environmental organisations in the UK—found that, a year on from COP15 in Montreal, the UK was off track on 18 of the targets to which it had signed up. Of those 18 targets, Link found that, on 11 of them, either no progress was being made or things were actively getting worse. As I have mentioned, there is a complete failure to meet the previous targets on nature, agreed at COP10. That failure is, not least, due to the lack of a serious monitoring and reporting regime to track the nation’s progress against those goals. Transparency on progress is crucial if the strategies are to be credible and effective. Will the Minister commit to embedding a real-time monitoring framework into the plans to make sure we can all see how nations are faring against these goals and allow policy to be adapted accordingly?

Although it is necessary for the Government to take the time required to develop plans with the level of detail we have requested today—not simply take the environmental improvement plan off the shelf—it is also important for us all to have sight of those plans and make sure they are up to scratch. Can the Minister please tell us when her Department intends to publish the strategies in advance of COP16? The time for action is now. The strategy must start with an acceptance that Britain is currently off track, and a renewed determination to rescue our depleted natural world.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Grayling and Toby Perkins

Thursday 19th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

The new classic-compatible trains and the arrival of HS2 up to the north-west of England will of course mean more speedy journey times to Scotland. I know the hon. Gentleman’s party’s view. We want to see further improvements through the 2020s to the west coast main line north of Crewe to ensure that we improve journey times. We want the best possible journey times across the whole network, and will continue to work for that.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

3. What information his Department holds on plans by HS2 Ltd to purchase land close to Chesterfield canal; and if he will make a statement.

HS2 Update

Debate between Lord Grayling and Toby Perkins

Monday 17th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

Let me be very clear—indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) has already been lobbying me hard on this—that Stoke-on-Trent will be served by HS2 services and will see additional services connecting to other parts of the region as a result of the development. I see the future of the train service in Stoke-on-Trent as very bright. People in that great city will have access to more services as a result of the investment.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

In Chesterfield, we stand ready to take advantage of the opportunity created by the jobs at the new Staveley depot, which we welcome. We also very much welcome the suggestion that there will be a stop at Chesterfield. Will the Secretary of State build on the good news for us in Chesterfield by confirming that there will be stops at Chesterfield? The wording of the Bill is somewhat ambiguous. Will the project also necessitate the electrification of the midland main line south of Sheffield to Chesterfield and beyond?

[Chris Grayling]

I can confirm that Chesterfield will have a service on HS2. I can also confirm that the HS2 route through Chesterfield and Sheffield to Leeds will have to be electrified so those trains can run through to Leeds. I also think that when Northern Powerhouse Rail is developed, the route north of Sheffield will become a very important part of it.

HS2 Update

Debate between Lord Grayling and Toby Perkins

Tuesday 15th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I cannot judge future developments, but York will be one of the places that benefits from HS2 connectivity: trains will run up the HS2 line and on through York. The extra capacity and extra speeds—the extra capacity on the east coast main line, and the extra speed and connectivity to London—will very much benefit my hon. Friend’s constituents.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

Having regularly buttonholed the Secretary of State’s predecessor, the right hon. Member for Derbyshire Dales (Sir Patrick McLoughlin), to ensure that Chesterfield was included in HS2, I am highly delighted with the Secretary of State’s proposal. Will he, however, confirm that passengers boarding HS2 at Chesterfield will have single-train access to Birmingham and London, as well as north to Sheffield and Leeds?

[Chris Grayling]

It is certainly our intention that people who board at Chesterfield and Sheffield will have good connections to London. I expect that there will be through trains. I cannot give the hon. Gentleman a number at the moment, but I am expecting that to happen.

EU Referendum (Privy Council)

Debate between Lord Grayling and Toby Perkins

Monday 14th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

The Leader of the House is clinging to the defence that he is using today, but it is clear that the Secretary of State for Justice wants people to believe that he was the source and that the story is true. Given that the right hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames), whom we all respect tremendously on such matters, considers this to be treason, the Leader of the House’s rather flippant approach massively undermines the importance of this important role.

[Chris Grayling]

I am not quite sure where the hon. Gentleman is coming from. Someone cannot be found guilty of an offence when none has taken place. My predecessor has said that the story is categorically untrue, so that really should be the end of the matter.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Grayling and Toby Perkins

Thursday 14th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I am happy to do both, and I think we should say very clearly as a Parliament and as a nation that the persecution of Christians around the world is to be abhorred. This is a world that should respect the freedom of individuals to follow their religion. No one should be persecuted for their religion. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that around the world, some Christian minorities are being persecuted for their religion. It is for this country as a beacon of liberal democracy to stand up for them—we should do that and we will.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

The Leader of the House may be aware that yesterday the House allowed my ten-minute rule Bill on the English national anthem to pass to Second Reading. Downing Street has briefed that it is open to allowing time for this to be properly pursued. It would be a great shame—there is a huge amount of interest in the subject—if when the Bill next comes before us, it is simply batted away without a debate or a vote. What steps can the right hon. Gentleman take to enable the voice of England to be heard and to decide on whether to have a different national anthem?

[Chris Grayling]

Yesterday’s debate was certainly interesting, but I am not sure that there was complete unity among his Front-Bench colleagues on the subject. I believe “Jerusalem” to be a magnificent part of our musical heritage, but I have to say that as it was being broadcast on a loop yesterday morning around Westminster and as I heard it for the 20th time, I was beginning to think it might be appropriate on selective occasions. I commend the hon. Gentleman for the work he is doing on an issue that will be discussed further. It is a matter that he could bring to the attention of the Backbench Business Committee and have it debated on the Floor of the House if it agreed to that.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Grayling and Toby Perkins

Thursday 5th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

Well, we do have Scottish votes for Scottish laws: it is called the Scottish Parliament. I keep listening to the outrage from SNP Members, but let me remind them, first, that they will not be excluded in future from any vote in this Chamber that they currently participate in; and, secondly, that when they discuss these matters away from this place, they appear to be rather less outraged than how they come across in this place. That was clear from a quotation that I read out last week.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I am one of 11 million Britons who suffer from hearing loss. Yesterday, there was a parliamentary reception for Action on Hearing Loss, and it was revealed that some health authorities, including North Staffordshire, no longer prescribe hearing aids for people with moderate hearing loss. That can be incredibly isolating for them. One in six people in Britain has a hearing loss, and it is likely to be one in five by 2035, so may we have a debate in Government time about how health authorities and health resources can be used to ensure that people with hearing loss do not suffer unnecessary isolation?

[Chris Grayling]

I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for the work he does on an issue that transcends party lines. Good work is done by all political parties in raising awareness of the challenges faced by people with hearing loss. Rightly or wrongly, of course, we have taken a decision to devolve responsibility to local areas for commissioning and spending decisions on healthcare matters. I hope that the hon. Gentleman’s advocacy will encourage those parts of the country that might have taken a decision with which he disagrees to change their views. It is a consequence of devolution that there will sometimes be different decisions in different areas, whether we support them or not.

Business of the House

Debate between Lord Grayling and Toby Perkins

Thursday 15th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

It is important to say that the decision taken by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education involves the expansion of a successful school. If that expansion goes ahead, it will mean that a successful school will be able to offer more places to more students, but it is the expansion of a successful school. Our policy is always to ensure that every successful school—grammar school, academy or otherwise—is able to expand to offer places to young people who need that support.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

In Chesterfield over the past few years we have been conscious of the huge difficulties in accessing GP appointments. The Government’s policy, which seems to suggest that GP contracts are over-generous at a time when the country is desperately struggling to attract GPs, and the moves that they are taking in relation to junior doctors, which are discouraging people from pursuing a career in that field, make the problems worse. May we have a debate in Government time to ascertain what the Government’s strategy is to improve access to GP appointments?

[Chris Grayling]

My right hon. Friend the Health Secretary was in the House on Tuesday answering questions. It is his policy to encourage the development of a seven-day NHS to improve access to GP services. He is working with the relevant representative groups on plans for employment structures for junior hospital doctors to ensure that we provide the right framework for that to happen, and also to provide the right support for our junior doctors.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Grayling and Toby Perkins

Tuesday 1st July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I completely agree with the hon. Lady. The last conversation I had with the Health Secretary about this was a week ago. We intend to do joint work on it and I see it as my Department’s next big priority. It is something we have to tackle and to tackle effectively.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

My constituent Gwen MacDonald has worked for more than 20 years in the probation service in Sheffield. When she asked why she had not been selected to move with the national probation service—she was to move to one of the new companies instead—when someone who had been in the service for only six months had been selected, she was told that it was because the selection was done by drawing names from a hat. Does that not show an utterly shambolic approach to probation? Does it not say everything about this Government’s approach, and what is the Secretary of State going to do about it?

[Chris Grayling]

What the hon. Gentleman says is absolute nonsense. Names were not drawn from a hat. There was a carefully constructed process of selection and a proper appeal mechanism for those who were unhappy with where they had been allocated.

Probation Service

Debate between Lord Grayling and Toby Perkins

Wednesday 30th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)]

I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “House” to the end of the Question and add:

“applauds the work already carried out by probation trusts and other agencies to turn offenders away from crime; and welcomes the Government’s proposals to build on that work to further reduce re-offending by extending support after release to offenders given short custodial sentences, introducing an unprecedented nationwide through-the-prison-gate resettlement service so that offenders are given continuous support by one provider from custody into the community, harnessing the skills and experience of trained professionals and the innovation and versatility of voluntary and private sector providers to support the rehabilitation of low and medium risk offenders and creating a new National Probation Service that will work to protect the public and will directly manage those offenders who pose a high risk of serious harm to the public.”

It is an enormous pleasure to be debating under your chairmanship, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is great to see you in the Chair. The amendment is in my name and the names of the Prime Minister and our right hon. Friends.

The House has sat and listened for the past half hour to a party that has absolutely no idea how to tackle what I believe to be Britain’s biggest crime problem. The Labour party did nothing about the problem in all of the 13 years it was in government. This Government will not repeat that record of failure. We are determined to break the depressing merry-go-round of crime. In this country, we have a cycle of reoffending that has a dreadful impact on the lives of decent, hard-working members of society, and that creates needless numbers of victims in our communities.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Chris Grayling]

I will make some progress before giving way to hon. Members. Let me get established first.

The reality is that crime in Britain is falling, which is good. There are fewer first-time criminals, which is also good. However, increasingly, crime is committed by people who have offended previously, who are going around and around the system. Reoffending in Britain has barely changed in a decade—it rose again in the past year. It is as high as it was five years ago when the trusts were formed and the reforms were introduced.

Just yesterday, we released statistics that paint a grim picture of reoffending in this country. More than 148,000 criminals convicted or cautioned in the past year had at least 15 previous convictions or cautions. More than 500,000 offenders had at least one previous conviction or caution, including 95% of those given short sentences of less than 12 months. That group of offenders—prisoners who are released from short sentences of less than a year—have long been neglected by the system. They are at the heart of what we want to achieve.

--- Later in debate ---

[Toby Perkins]

It is possible that the Secretary of State is right and that the experts whom he believes are wrong are wrong. However, surely in the interests of democratic accountability, a radical change of the sort he proposes should be debated properly in the House and the other place. Why is he so frightened of proper scrutiny of his policies?

[Chris Grayling]

I am not frightened, and I will talk about the legislative base later. I am not frightened to debate—I am here today debating. We are doing the right thing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Grayling and Toby Perkins

Monday 5th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

Beverley Herbert in my constituency was one of six people recently employed on a work experience basis by a major pub chain. Within four weeks, four of the others had gone, and the two people who were there for eight weeks collecting glasses were given permanent jobs, but were sacked within two weeks. Does the Secretary of State agree that for the work experience programme to enjoy widespread confidence, safeguards are needed to ensure that it does not end up exploiting people and providing free labour?

[Chris Grayling]

If Labour Members really want to answer the questions about the work experience scheme, they need to talk to some of the young people who have been through it, got jobs in their thousands and are delighted by the support they have received. That is what a responsible Government do: try to tackle a real challenge, find the right way to solve it and do so in a cost-effective way for the taxpayer. It is just a shame that the Labour party is not more vociferous in its support for what we are doing.

Youth Unemployment

Debate between Lord Grayling and Toby Perkins

Wednesday 16th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

We are taking decisions in the interests of the country. When I look back to 2005 and 2006, we always knew that Labour was making a mess of things, but we never imagined that they could do it quite so spectacularly.

[Toby Perkins]

If you realised that they were making such a mess of things, why did you agree to follow those plans? Is it not the right hon. Gentleman who has the amnesia?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. Members should not be using “you”—I have no responsibility for this and am certainly not guilty for the unemployment figures.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Grayling and Toby Perkins

Monday 22nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend will see tomorrow, with the publication of the Harrington review, some innovative suggestions about how we can deal with that problem. It is a very real problem. I am determined to ensure that we do everything we can to avoid people with mental health problems being wrongly diagnosed by the assessment. I pay tribute to Paul Farmer of Mind, whose input into the process has been hugely valuable.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

May I bring the Minister back to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Bain) about the cuts to housing benefit? The cuts to local housing allowance are the same cuts that will make people in Chesterfield up to £11 a week worse off. Will the Minister confirm that that was not in the Labour party manifesto and is nothing to do with the cap? Will he set the record straight?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Grayling and Toby Perkins

Monday 18th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I welcome what the Minister of State, the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), said previously about looking into the work capability assessment. I met a delegation from Chesterfield and north Derbyshire on Thursday, although they were due to have a meeting with him. One in the group was told that she was fit to work four days before a cancer operation, while another who had a plaster cast the whole length of his arm was told that he was fit to work. Unfortunately, the Minister cancelled his appointment to see them on the day before they came down to London. Will he commit to seeing them? If he really wants to learn about the work capability assessment, he should meet some of the people who have been affected by it.

[Chris Grayling]

I did not cancel any appointment, and I had a meeting with the TUC official who organised the rally on that day. What I cannot do is get into discussion of every individual case. My goal remains to do the right thing by those people who are on incapacity benefit in the long term. We need to modify and refine the work capability assessment based on the best information available to us. What we face today is what we inherited from the previous Government. What I am doing right now is trying to improve it so that it is as foolproof as possible when we come to the national roll-out next spring. I will do my best to get that right and I hope there will be cross-party support for doing so.

Jobs and the Unemployed

Debate between Lord Grayling and Toby Perkins

Wednesday 7th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

We have taken a decision—and rightly so—to push out of Government the job of economic forecasting. That is the purpose of the Office for Budget Responsibility. Its analysis, independent of Government, is that unemployment will fall and employment will rise as a result of the decisions that we have taken in the Budget. That is the direction in which we should be heading.

Those in the previous Government cannot simply blame the recession for this mess. Despite 10 years in power, even before the global banking crisis started, more than 15% of our children—1.75 million children—lived in households where no one worked. We have one of the worst rates of workless households in the EU. I am therefore delighted to take on the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford on employment today, and to remind the House and this country what a terrible record the previous Government had in their 13 years in office.

There were fewer jobs in manufacturing. We have heard a lot of talk today about the 1980s, but let us be clear: the big drop in manufacturing employment in this country and the big slump in the proportion of the economy taken up by manufacturing took place under the Labour Government, between 1997 and 2010. Labour should be ashamed of the previous Government’s calamitous record on supporting manufacturing business in this country and creating a regulatory environment that drove so many firms out of business and overseas. The previous Government constantly missed their targets on apprenticeships. We heard again and again of how they were going to deliver hundreds of thousands of apprenticeships, but they never hit their targets. They spent massive amounts on employment programmes—designed in Whitehall but ineffective in practice—and they left the biggest deficit in our peacetime history. After all those promises about ending boom and bust, Labour finished with the longest recession in the western world.

[Toby Perkins]

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned that some programmes were ineffective. One of the programmes that he has cut is the future jobs fund. I tabled a written question about that for his Department, but it was completely unable to tell me how many jobs had been created in my constituency. As the Department obviously does not know whether the future jobs fund was successful or not—it is too early—and as it is unable to provide any evidence that it was not, why does the right hon. Gentleman not just admit that cutting the scheme was a decision made for ideological reasons rather than because it was not working?

[Chris Grayling]

What we sent to the hon. Gentleman in the written answer was the details of the future jobs fund placements in his area. We have to be careful with taxpayers’ money, and it would therefore not have been prudent to collect data down to constituency level. However, the information is there for him to see, and when he looks at those data, he will see that the success of the future jobs fund in creating jobs has been consistently below target all the way through.

Let me lay to rest one myth today. We have not stopped the future jobs fund. Tens of thousands of additional places will be created over the next few months under the future jobs fund. We have said, however, that we need to take tough decisions in the light of the mess left behind by the previous Government. Also, by next spring, we will be bringing on stream the Work programme, which we believe will provide long-term support for those who are looking to get back into work. I shall say a bit more about that in a moment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Grayling]

The hon. Lady has made an important point, which I am sure her Committee will want to address. In fact, I was going to refer to the work capability assessment. These are important issues, and we clearly face a big challenge. There are 2.2 million people on old-style incapacity benefit, and we must do all we can to help as many of them as possible to return to work. Of course, not all of those people will be able to work and many will need to continue to receive unconditional support throughout their lives; but every organisation I have ever worked with, come across or talked to that works with people with disabilities and long-term sickness problems would like to see more of them back at work. We all believe that work will help those people, and I am determined that this part of the Work programme will make a huge difference to them.

[Toby Perkins]

rose—

[Chris Grayling]

I will give way once more, but then I really must make some progress.

[Toby Perkins]

I am grateful to the Minister, who has raised the important issue of people on incapacity benefit and the large number of people with mental health problems. Given his belief that the solution to those problems lies in the private sector, is he aware of many private sector employers who are rushing to employ people with a history of mental health problems or with a serious history of incapacity problems?

[Chris Grayling]

The key to supporting people with mental health problems and other disability issues is winning the confidence of employers, and the role that can be played by providers—whether in the private or the voluntary sector—in forging relationships with employers. I believe that as that relationship strengthens, as people start to obtain work placements and as employers start to work with some of those who have been on incapacity benefit, employers will become more ready and willing to provide extra opportunities.

I have no doubt that many businesses in this country want to do the right thing. I believe that, in general, members of our society recognise that we cannot go on with the same number of people stranded on incapacity benefit. I am confident that if we get the programme right and deliver effective back-to-work support for those people, the opportunities will be there and will grow as time goes by. I know there is consensus across the House on this proposal. We came up with it originally, and the previous Government adopted it. Now we are taking it forward, and we will work hard to refine the work capability assessment to ensure that we get it right. I look forward to working with the Select Committee and the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Miss Begg) to achieve that. It is fundamentally important that we actually make a difference to those people, about a quarter of whom have claimed incapacity benefit for more than 12 years. That has had a devastating impact on the people themselves, and it is a burden we have had to carry as a society. We must do all we can to help as many as possible of those people to make something better of their lives.

All that, of course, is in addition to the support that will continue to be provided by Jobcentre Plus. I agree with the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford that its staff do a first-rate job, which in recent years they have done under great pressure. I am glad that that work is recognised on both sides of the House.

Our package of reforms is not just about getting people into a job, and it is not just about saving money; it is all about helping people to make more of their lives. We have heard so much from the Labour party in recent weeks about its policies and how they would have made all the difference, but I do not buy that; I do not think they are right. What we inherited from Labour was a series of commitments it could not afford and a series of plans that involved short-term solutions to its political problems, rather than long-term solutions for the individuals concerned and for our country. We need a fresh approach, which is why we believe so strongly in focusing on apprenticeships rather than the future jobs fund.

Apprenticeships provide an opportunity to learn new skills that are actually valued by employers. They give people a chance to learn a trade and to embark on a career, while also improving productivity and developing a talent pool. A Labour Member mentioned skills. I happen to believe that a well-run apprenticeship is a much better way of giving someone a platform for life. That is why we are spending £150 million on a programme involving 50,000 apprenticeships that can make a difference.