Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what progress the Government has made in reducing long-term unemployment in areas of high unemployment in the last 12 months.

According to the Office for National Statistics’ Labour Force Survey, long-term unemployment has fallen nationally by 86,000 (17.5%) over the past 12 months. Equivalent figures are not available below national level due to the limitations of the sample size of the ONS survey.