Universal Credit and Jobseeker’s Allowance (Work Search and Work Availability Requirements @0017 Limitations (Amendment) Regulations 2022
Gareth Johnson Excerpts(2 years, 2 months ago)
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Universal Credit
Gareth Johnson Excerpts(5 years, 8 months ago)
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Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)
Let me say at the outset that I do not claim that everything about universal credit is perfect, or that everything has gone according to plan. I think it is inevitable that such a huge reform will involve issues that will need to be dealt with. To suggest that it should be scrapped, however—as the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) has just done—is to risk losing the significant benefits that it has brought about. We should not be in the business of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but that is precisely the attitude of those who say that this whole benefits system should be scrapped.
It is worth noting why it was necessary to bring in universal credit and to consider where we have come from. Under the last Government, we had a system that was confusing, bureaucratic and unfair, and ensured that people did not receive the benefits to which they were entitled. Indeed, that was factored into the budget of the DWP, which knew that the system was so complicated that it would not have to pay out the money that it would otherwise have had to pay out. Those arrangements also led to the worst aspect of the system, which was that it prevented people from working.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
The hon. Gentleman is telling us about the faults of the previous system. Single parents are particularly hard hit by universal credit: cuts in the work allowance mean that the average parent loses about £800 a year, and some lose up to £2,000 a year. Given that 91% of single parents are women, this system discriminates hugely against women. Does he agree that that is unfair and should be addressed?
Gareth Johnson
I do not agree. There have been these transitional protections that we need to have in place. I am not saying that every aspect of universal credit has been correctly implemented—I do not think anyone is claiming that—but I think it is right that we try to ensure that people are better off under this system and that it is a fairer system. Most important, as I have said, is that it should enable people to work.
Under the previous system, I lost count of the number of times people said to me, “I cannot afford to work.” They used to say that they could not possibly get a job even though they would love to do so because they would lose their benefits as a consequence. That was as frustrating as it was wrong. It trapped people into staying on benefits and ensured that people got out of the habit of working. The best way out of poverty is through work and we need a benefits system that allows for that, and we did not have that under the previous Administration. What we saw was excessive tinkering, which added to the confusion surrounding benefits. Myriad different types of tax credits were introduced and abolished during that time; it was described at the time as being like a gardener going around pulling up plants to see if the roots were still there. That is how complicated the system was that we had to take over. We needed change and we had the courage to bring about that change. We should take the credit for having done so.
The strength of universal credit is that it simplifies things and encourages work. Benefits should mirror the working world. That is why it is right that most UC payments are monthly; most salaries are paid monthly. It should provide a way back into work and not provide a way of life.
One major test for UC is whether it is helping people get back into work. The answer to that is an emphatic yes. We have seen huge increases in employment. Youth unemployment is at its lowest rate ever and wages have exceeded inflation every month for the last seven months. Part of the reason for this is that we have a benefits system that facilitates work. We were told—I think it was Ed Balls who said this—that our policies would result in unemployment going up by 1 million, but the contrary is the case: employment has gone up by 3 million as a consequence of our policies. No one is claiming that the system is perfect—I am certainly not—but it is a massive improvement on what we previously had, so is well worth keeping.
One of the reasons we have low unemployment in the UK while it is much higher in other countries, particularly on the continent, is that we have a benefits system that allows people to get back to work. Yet some people inexplicably say that that system should be scrapped.
I will cut my comments short now, as I am running out of time. Care and consideration are needed during the rest of the implementation of UC. It needs to be done and it needs to be adequately funded. I ask the Minister to be cautious in doing this. We must not be complacent about it, but we should not scrap UC, as we have been asked to do.
Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)
The Government’s universal credit policy is an utter shambles and a disgrace. Even if the original vision was well intentioned, it is forcing families into poverty, homelessness and destitution. According to The Times, some households will be £200 a week worse off after transferring to universal credit. Half of lone parents and two thirds of working-age couples with children are likely to be £2,400 a year worse off.
The Government have used universal credit as a vehicle for cuts. Instead of helping to lift families out of poverty, it is increasing dependency on food banks, increasing homelessness and increasing indebtedness. The context of this policy is that 4.5 million children are already living in poverty in this country. With disability benefits being cut by £5 billion, child benefits being cut by £2.8 billion and housing benefits being cut by £2.3 billion, universal credit will add to people’s suffering. This is not about transferring people from worklessness and unemployment into employment; it will increase in-work poverty.
The Government talk about ending austerity, but the reality is that this policy will add to people’s suffering. The Government rapidly need to find the additional funding to make this policy achieve its original objective of creating an opportunity for people to make the transition into work and to be able to lift themselves out of poverty. That is not what is happening.
Gareth Johnson
I agree with the hon. Lady that universal credit needs to be adequately funded. Is she as surprised as I am, therefore, that the Labour party did not support the extra £1.5 billion given to universal credit in the last Budget?
Rushanara Ali
The hon. Gentleman should talk to the Chancellor about sorting out this policy, because, too often, his Government experiment on the British people without having a clue about what is happening in people’s lives and dismiss the problems that our constituents face. That happened with national health service reform. Where is the former Health Secretary, who introduced those policies that have devastated the health service? The same is happening with welfare reform. Ministers mete out incredibly devastating, damaging policies on the population, just as they are with Brexit, and then they leave. That is not good enough. Take responsibility and sort out this policy.
If universal credit were a workable policy that improved people’s lives, the Minister might have support from other parties, but that is not where we are. People are being forced into poverty and destitution—that is the legacy of the former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), who introduced this policy. Frankly, he went on a discovery exercise in opposition and found poverty in this country. He decided to come to this House to introduce universal credit, but the reality is that it will make matters worse.
Even those of us who gave the right hon. Gentleman the benefit of the doubt when he founded the so-called Centre for Social Justice now find that his intentions were utterly disgraceful. He presided over a policy that will devastate millions of people’s lives, and Ministers should get a grip and make sure that those mistakes do not end up causing more suffering in our country, because that is his legacy. He should be here taking responsibility for what is happening in this country.
Over half the population of my constituency, including over half the children, live in poverty—the proportion has gone up significantly. Local government funding has gone down by 24% since this Government came to power. Furthermore, families with more than two children are facing cuts to their benefits. The two-child policy will devastate children’s life chances. The policies introduced by this Government are an attempt to cut much needed funding. Although they might have been well intentioned, they are making a mess of a policy that might have commanded support on both sides of the House. The Government need to get a grip, sort out the policy and delay the roll-out until universal credit is absolutely watertight and protects people’s lives, rather than damages them.
Young Jobseekers
Gareth Johnson Excerpts(8 years, 8 months ago)
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Chloe Smith
I am grateful for that point, which stands by itself so I shall welcome it and move on to the need for a strong economy.
The single best way to get young people into opportunities is for there to be lots of opportunities to start with. The Government have overseen significant private sector job growth, and the economy continues to grow. More jobs have been created in Britain recently than in the rest of Europe put together, and that is undeniably good news for a generation of young jobseekers who can look to a brighter future.
We need to connect young people to those opportunities—here comes the meat of the debate. A local example illustrates my point. I founded and run a project called Norwich for Jobs. In 2013, I looked at our local unemployment figures for those aged 18 to 24, and I knew that 2,000 unemployed young people was too many. Drawing together a team that could do something about it, we set about halving that number. In fact, we smashed the target we set ourselves in less than two years. So far, we have helped nearly 2,000 young people into work. About 600 still claim jobseeker’s allowance, and we want to encourage employers to give them opportunities now.
We did that by encouraging local employers to create opportunities; connecting young people with those jobs, with the jobcentre at the heart of the process; and focusing the community on a common goal. We are taking on a new challenge after having met our first target, and we are now using the power of that local network to help those claiming employment and support allowance—in other words, young people who want work but have a health condition or a disability. I strongly support the Government’s clarion call to be disability confident, and I call today on Norwich employers to consider what more they can do.
We are turning that one city project into a regional movement. The Norfolk and Suffolk youth pledge, led by the New Anglia local enterprise partnership, is a further strong example of the kind of collaboration that stands the best chance of helping young jobseekers. The pledge is that every young person in Norfolk and Suffolk will get the personal support they need to get an apprenticeship, training, work experience or a job within three months of leaving education or employment. The New Anglia skills board and Jobcentre Plus have been working closely with the two county councils, and indeed with me and others—I am on the board of the project—to develop the project. We are building on the successful roll-out of the MyGo service—the first of its kind in the UK—which was launched in Ipswich in 2014 and the project I outlined in Norwich. I am proud of that project, and hope it stands as an example to other hon. Members of what they can convene in their areas. Research by the Found Generation holds up MyGo, a youth employment centre that was the starting point of the Ipswich project, as a very powerful project.
How best can we help young people? I said that we should grow the economy and make connections. We should also share good ideas, which is why I have talked about those examples. I mentioned the all-party group on youth employment, and I welcome the members who are here today, including my hon. Friends the Members for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson) and for Bolton West (Chris Green). I welcome their presence, because we aim to share good practice. Our primary objectives are to promote youth employment in all its forms and the role of young people in the economy, to ensure that young people’s voices are heard, to highlight the need for good-quality opportunities and to share best practice.
We should value good-quality research and learn from it what we can do better. I will draw on two reports. YMCA England, of which I am a parliamentary patron—I am also patron of the Norfolk organisation—produced a constructive and practical research report, which I have in front of me, entitled “Safety Net or Springboard?” Its purpose
“was to examine how the social security systems could be transformed to better enable young people to find employment and fulfil their potential.
High levels of youth unemployment are not a new problem in the UK. While the global recession saw a significant jump in the number of young people facing unemployment, in reality, the upward trend started long before the financial crisis, as far back as 2004.
Given that numerous governments have tried a range of schemes to battle this problem with only mixed success, this research sought to give young people a voice in shaping any new approach offered, including the introduction of a Youth Obligation, a back-to-work scheme announced by the Government as part of the Summer Budget 2015.
Through a series of focus groups, young people from YMCA identified six areas they believed job centres could improve to increase their prospects of finding employment:…Understanding young people’s circumstances…Listening to young people’s aspirations…Supporting young people to look for work…Getting young people the right skills and qualifications…Securing young people with meaningful work experience”
and
“Retaining support for young people transitioning into employment.”
The evidence in the report is based on a series of focus groups that took place this summer across England in areas that many hon. Members here come from: north Tyneside, Birkenhead, Grimsby, Derby, Birmingham, Bedford, Dartford, Westminster, Horsham, Exeter and my own constituency of Norwich. The YMCA found that:
“The overwhelming feelings expressed by the young people participating in the research were ones of frustration and dismay towards job centres and the support they currently provide in helping to find employment. More than nine in 10 of individuals taking part in the focus groups believed the support they were currently or previously receiving from their job centre was not helping them find employment. Through the research, YMCA sought to understand why this alienation exists between young people and job centres and to identify what measures they felt were necessary to transform the job centre and the wider social security system from a safety net to a springboard into employment.”
I want to be absolutely clear that I have the highest respect for Jobcentre Plus staff. As my local examples demonstrate, I work closely with the team in Norwich and East Anglia, which is led by the excellent district manager Julia Nix. I see their dedication, innovation and hard work day in and day out.
Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)
I have read the report that my hon. Friend is talking about. She rightly said that it referred to some work in Dartford, but there were a number of things that surprised me about it. First, it said that Dartford is in London; it is not. It was also somewhat critical of some of its experiences there. That has never been my experience of the jobcentre in Dartford; I have always found the staff to be incredibly professional. I would argue in their defence that the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and that since 2010 youth unemployment in Dartford has fallen by some 71%.
Chloe Smith
I welcome my hon. Friend’s contribution. He makes the same point as I do. The best officials in the jobcentre are highly respected and are known for their work in the community. Their passion shines out and they embody the values of public service at every opportunity. They also take a hands-on approach, which is perhaps over and above the duties of a civil servant. They could well be expected to do their work from behind a desk, but the best officials do not do that. They go out and work hard in the community to get results. I welcome hearing my hon. Friend’s local example.
It is in that spirit that I mention the YMCA research today, because civil servants of the calibre of which we speak will want to do even better. The report states that
“many young people are continuing to be prescribed the same generic support, regardless of their circumstances and aspirations. This is creating a significant discordance between how young people view the service being provided and what governments believe they offer. While examples of good practice do exist, the research illustrates that these are few and far between”.
Let’s share the good ideas and let’s do better. The YMCA research proposes that the new youth obligation be matched with an obligation on jobcentres. It argues that the obligation should commit jobcentres to providing each young person accessing its services with a more detailed initial assessment with a closer focus on their personal circumstances and aspirations, a specialist youth work coach, more comprehensive sign-on sessions, more regular opportunities, better training and work experience, and options to discuss how available funding may be used to let them participate in training. The report also suggests that people should be able to participate in training for more than 16 hours a week without their benefit claims being affected.
I want to quote some of the young people in the research. Charlotte of Norwich says:
“I want the job centre to be a bit more understanding.”
Jordan of north Tyneside says:
“The job centre needs to stop treating everyone the same.”
Marcio of Bedford says:
“The job centre needs to really listen to young people to see what we want.”
Other voices in the report tell us why we must collaborate locally to bring about the chances that young people need. Another young person from Norwich says:
“Everyone is looking for experienced workers, but how are we going to be experienced workers when no one is giving out experience?”
Another from Norwich seeks more “volunteering placements”. I suspect that organisations listening to today’s debate may want to continue the digital debate and explain exactly what they can offer in terms of volunteering opportunities for young people up and down the country.
I would also recommend that Members take a look at the work of the Found Generation, as mentioned earlier. It is another extremely practical group that asks young people for their own solutions to the problem of young unemployment. In July 2014, it published “Practical Solutions to UK Youth Unemployment”, a report asking for four things. First, it asks that we expand
“the use of public sector procurement to create jobs for young people”,
which I note that the Minister for the Cabinet Office is now doing. Secondly, we are asked to back
“a national ‘kitemark’ to recognise ‘youth friendly’ employers”
and I note that at least one organisation, Youth Employment UK—the secretariat of the all-party parliamentary group that I chair—is already doing so. Indeed, hon. Members can qualify for the award, as I have. I am a recognised youth-friendly MP.
DWP: Performance
Gareth Johnson Excerpts(10 years ago)
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Mr Duncan Smith
I will come back to that point in a moment, but first I will make some progress.
Gareth Johnson
Does the Secretary of State agree that the most effective way of getting people out of poverty is by ensuring that they achieve employment? To that end, is he aware that not a single Labour Government, from the time they took office to the time they left, have ever reduced unemployment? I therefore urge him to stick with his policies.
Mr Duncan Smith
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I will return to the matter of unemployment later, but the reality is that we are driving unemployment down and employment up. Youth unemployment and long-term unemployment are falling as a result of this Government’s actions.
Oral Answers to Questions
Gareth Johnson Excerpts(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Duncan Smith
Yet again we hear from the hon. Lady a complete failure to mention the fact that in all her Government’s time in power, they did nothing for those who lived in overcrowded accommodation. A quarter of a million people were left to us who suffer every day because they cannot get the right rooms. One million people were left on the waiting list, and the house building programme fell to its lowest point since the 1920s. There is only one answer to her: sorting this out is the right thing to do, and shame on a Government who did nothing for those in greatest difficulty.
Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)
T2. Will the Minister join me in welcoming the fall in unemployment in my constituency over the past three years? We now have about 2,500 more people in work than in 2010, benefiting young and old, those in full-time and part-time positions, and men and women. Does not this highlight how important it is for the Government to stick to their economic plans and ensure that the well-being of this country improves?
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Esther McVey)
My hon. Friend is right to say that we have got a record number of people into work across the board. What is most interesting as I travel up and down the country is to see how local Jobcentres Plus are working with local businesses to support their local work forces. In particular, the learning shop at Bluewater is doing tremendous work. My hon. Friend is right. We have done a lot; we have more to do.
Job Insecurity
Gareth Johnson Excerpts(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Umunna
I will try to make progress, because I am conscious that I have been going on for some time.
We would clamp down on false self-employment. That is the practice by which employers classify their workers as self-employed in order to pay lower levels of national insurance. Of course, that leaves workers without the protections that are enjoyed by employees, even though most people would regard their relationship as one of employment. That is a particular issue in construction. The last Labour Government proposed that workers should automatically be deemed as employed for tax purposes if they met the criteria that most people would regard as obvious signs of being employees rather than self-employed contractors. That will be the starting point for the next Labour Government.
To conclude, we have a bigger goal. Our ambition must be to transform our labour market from one that has too high a percentage of low-wage and low-skill jobs into a high-wage, high-value and high-skill labour market. Of the 25 economies in the OECD, we rank fifth in the percentage of our labour market that is low-waged and low-skilled, and we must tackle that.
Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there has been a 24% reduction in people claiming benefits in my constituency, which is not a million miles from his constituency? Most of those jobs are full-time, permanent positions, and many are for 18 to 24-year-olds. That happened only because we did not take the advice that the Labour party gave us over the past three to four years, and we stuck with our plans. Why should we start taking the hon. Gentleman’s advice now?
Mr Umunna
I think the clue is in the question. The hon. Gentleman said three to four years, but he did not mention that we had a flatlining economy during that period, or all the stress and worry that people have been subject to in the meantime. That is why we disagreed with his Government’s economic strategy.
Returning to the composition of our Labour market, as economists grapple with the ongoing productivity puzzle, a growing body of thought suggests that it is explained by the compositional change in the work force that I mentioned, and the change towards having more low-paid, low-productivity sectors than before. We must address that and do so fast.
Housing Benefit
Gareth Johnson Excerpts(10 years, 7 months ago)
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Mike Freer
No. The crux of the matter is that we inherited a bad situation and we are setting about putting it right. That is what this is about. At least the Labour housing spokesman on the London assembly had the honesty to stand up and say that the Labour party got it wrong and that it should apologise, as my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) mentioned. He also pointed out that every Conservative Government have built more social housing than any Labour Government in recent history. Even in Mrs Thatcher’s last year, the then Government built more social housing than was built in all 13 years of the Labour Government, so we do not need lectures on housing supply and social housing from the Opposition.
Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)
Is not the central issue of this debate the fact that it is wrong to ask the taxpayer to pick up the bill for some people who have accommodation that they simply do not need?
Mike Freer
My hon. Friend is right. My casework is about families living in overcrowded accommodation who cannot get into the right accommodation. That is what we need to put right.
With reference to London, as that is the most populous part of the UK, let us not forget how Labour’s Ken Livingstone destroyed social house building at a stroke when he was Mayor. His arbitrary thresholds ground social house building to a halt because builders built to the threshold and then they stopped.
Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill
Gareth Johnson Excerpts(11 years, 5 months ago)
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Sarah Teather (Brent Central) (LD)
People who come to my constituency office these days for help with some kind of error in their benefits often spend the first few minutes trying to justify their worth. They usually begin by trying to explain their history of working and that they have paid tax. They are desperate to get over the point that they are not like other benefit claimants—they are not a scrounger. It is perhaps a feature of the way in which the term “scroungers” has become so pervasive in social consciousness that even those on benefits do not attempt to debunk the entire category, only to excuse themselves from the label.
Language matters. Politicians in this place know that, because all of us spend a good deal of time worrying about how everything we say will be reported by the media, just as journalists pore over every fact, comma and noun we give to look for power shifts and personal divisions. Any modern political party devotes considerable money and effort to testing messages with focus groups to see how they would influence voting patters. However, I am afraid we often spend less time considering how our language actually affects people’s lives, choices, values and sense of worth, how they rub up against their neighbours and how society itself functions.
In an atmosphere of uncertainty and limited resources and where every family in this country is struggling, there is a natural tendency to try to find someone to blame for our woes. A fissure already exists between the working and non-working poor. Hammering on that fault line with the language of “shirkers” and “strivers” will have long-term impacts on public attitudes, on attitudes to one neighbour against another. It will make society less generous, less sympathetic, less able to co-operate. The marginalisation of the undeserving poor will place one group outwith society entirely over time and leave them less able to make choices about their lives and to participate. That fragmentation of society, for me, is the spectre of broken Britain, and it is one that we hasten at our peril.
Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)
Does the hon. Lady not recognise that the nub of the whole argument is that if we allow benefits to be increased by more than salaries, that will increase the number of people on benefits who are trapped in poverty and unable to afford to go to work?
Sarah Teather
I will return to that point in a moment, because I want to make another point about public attitudes first.
For those of us in this place who care about social justice, long-term changes in public attitudes to poverty should give us other causes of concern, because they will make it more difficult for any politicians who come after us to argue for any option for the poor, because public opinion will simply not support it. The irony, of course, is that, as many have said, many of those affected by the Bill are actually in work; many are the same group who have already had a negligible pay rise and are already bumping along at the bottom of the poverty threshold. For me, that is the first of a number of disingenuous comparisons used to argue for the fairness of the Bill. The first is that those affected are out of work, when many more are in fact in work but on low pay. As the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) mentioned a moment ago, many of those are part of the group of people who cycle in and out of work all the time; I see that in my constituency.
The second disingenuous point is about percentages themselves, which fail to take into account the cuts to housing benefit that families in my constituency will be experiencing in the next six months or so as the changes filter through. There are also the changes in April to council tax benefit; they will affect the same families affected by the uprating provisions in the Bill.
The third point is whether percentages mean anything at all. Whatever goal posts are used to measure the percentage change in benefit across time, it is clear that the monetary value of rising average wages is significantly more than that of benefits. Percentages do not buy milk, bread or school uniforms—pounds and pennies buy those things, and it is in pounds and pennies that people will experience a cut.
Oral Answers to Questions
Gareth Johnson Excerpts(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)
11. What recent steps he has taken to prevent benefit tourism.
Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)
16. What recent steps he has taken to prevent benefit tourism.
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)
The European Commission wants to end the habitual residence test. As a result, we would have to pay benefits to EU migrants as and when they arrive and they would not have to prove that they have been here, are working and have a residence. I believe that that is fundamentally wrong, as do the Government. The habitual residence test is vital to protect our benefits system and to stop such benefit tourism. I also do not believe that the EU has any rights in that area, and we are working with other countries that feel much the same.
Mr Duncan Smith
I actually have not received any representations from the Labour party but, to be fair, I did not ask for any. I always look forward to seeing my opposite number over a drink, although we have not had one recently, and he is more than welcome to make representations. He should know that we have had good representations from other countries that were not part of this, including Portugal, Slovakia and Slovenia. I want to put it on the record that the costs of the proposal could be enormous. If we did not have the British residency test, it is estimated that right now the cost would be something in the order of £155 million, although that could change.
Gareth Johnson
I welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement on the habitual residence test. Does he agree that the test is vital in preventing abuse of our welfare state? Perhaps most of all, however, surely we should be deciding on such issues, not the European Union.
Mr Duncan Smith
Again, I agree with my hon. Friend. We already have an issue that should be dealt with beyond that, with people who declare themselves as self-employed on arrival here—some coming in as sellers on the street, and so on. There is a way in which they can claim benefits. We do not want to open that up to everybody; we would rather deal with that but not lose the habitual residence test, which is my plan.
Mr Duncan Smith
There is absolutely nothing to hide—[Interruption.] No, no. We are committed to the £2.5 billion all the way through and we will deliver universal credit on time, as it is and on budget. Any time he would like, he is welcome to come into the office and look through some of our business matters, as is his colleague, the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms). I will show him how we are on time, on target and on budget.
The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) did rather jump the gun. He referred over the weekend to universal credit as a car crash in the making. I need no advice from the man who produced the biggest car crash in British economic history.
Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)
T10. The Secretary of State will be aware that Bluewater shopping centre in my constituency recently announced a further 1,500 jobs to add to the jobs of 7,500 people who are employed there. Will he accept my invitation to visit Bluewater with me to see first hand the job creation that this Government have helped to make possible?
Mr Duncan Smith
I look forward to visiting my hon. Friend and shall definitely come. He gives us a great reminder—the Opposition do not like this very much—of the three-quarters improvement in employment, and of falling unemployment and benefit claimant numbers. More importantly, as a direct result of what the Government have done in our welfare reforms, there is a lower number of economically inactive people than at almost any time since those records began.