Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Barwell Excerpts

Wednesday 11th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

When prices outstrip wages, it is really important to cut people’s taxes, and that is what we have done by delivering a tax cut to 25 million working people, lifting the personal allowance and giving people a £700 tax cut. We have been able to do that only because we have taken tough decisions on spending, tough decisions on welfare and tough decisions on the deficit—tough decisions that the Leader of the Opposition has wrongly rejected.

[Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)]

When the Labour party left government, 770 young people in my constituency were out of work. Today, there are just 585, and we now have Westfield and Hammerson proposing to invest £1.5 billion to transform our town centre and create thousands of jobs. Will the Prime Minister meet me to discuss how the Government can help with the infrastructure improvements that will end the scourge of youth unemployment in our town that we inherited from the last Government?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Of course we still have more work to do to get young people into work. Overall, however, 1.4 million more people are now employed in the private sector and we have a historic, record level of women in employment, and the number of people in work is almost up by 1 million since the election, with unemployment lower than at the election and long-term unemployment down on a year ago. We still have more work to do, but we are heading in the right direction. We have to keep on track and keep working to help business to take people on.