Employment

Lord Lea of Crondall Excerpts

Wednesday 21st January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

I am very pleased to answer my noble friend’s question. I was aware of those figures, and they underline the point: it is how you run the economy effectively that drives the employment figures, not how you manipulate those figures later with odd schemes.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Government announce an independent inquiry into the evidence reported in today’s Guardian that Ministers in the Minister’s department have been instructing officials to manipulate the unemployment figures downwards?