Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of recent employment trends.

The latest figures show a record number of people in work - 30.76 million, up 736,000 on the year. There are a record 14.4m women in work, with a record female employment rate of 68.1%. This year there have been some of the largest annual increases in employment since the 1980s.

Total unemployment saw a record annual fall of 538,000, bringing unemployment below 2 million for the first time since 2008. Youth unemployment fell a record 253,000 on the year to 733,000. Long-term unemployment fell 194,000 on the year - the largest annual fall since 1998.