Compulsory Jobs Guarantee

Alan Reid Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Timms]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the ambition, and of course this scheme will be an enormous step towards tackling the scourge of long-term unemployment. To build a strong and stable recovery, and a fairer and more united country, we need to make sure, as he says, that everyone gets to play their part, that we harness its talents and fulfil the potential of all, and that everybody knows they have a stake in our country’s future.

We have seen some welcome recent falls in the headline rate of unemployment, from the peaks reached after this Government choked off the recovery they had inherited in 2010. More people in work is always good news, which is why we repeatedly urged the Government to do more to stop the soaring unemployment they presided over after the general election.

[Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)]

I draw the right hon. Gentleman’s attention to the fact that in my constituency unemployment rose by 385 under his Government, whereas it has fallen under this Government by 763. His Government failed, not this one.

[Stephen Timms]

But long-term unemployment is higher in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency now than it was at the time of the last election. That is the legacy of the three years of almost no growth in the economy following the general election, which we now need to address. Let me say to him and to other Government Members that self-congratulation on what has happened in recent months is dangerously complacent about underlying problems in the labour market and utterly out of touch with the impact such problems have on people who are desperate to work and to earn their way out of the cost of living crisis they are facing. People are deeply concerned about the prospects for their children and the grandchildren. Those are the points we now need to address.