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Unemployment in the UK

There are two key elements to my argument today, and the chapter 11 proposals would have no cost impact. On the subject of bringing forward the welfare reforms, since the Secretary of State has assured us regularly over the past few weeks that his proposals carry no extra cost, I assume that bringing them forward earlier would indeed carry no extra cost. It is merely a question of getting on with the job faster. I sincerely hope that unemployment does not rise as far or as fast as some are predicting, but we need to be ready if it does. It will not help tackle the problem if the Government continue to bury their head in the sand about the true scale of worklessness in the UK. We need measures to protect small business and to help it grow. We need better support for those who do lose their jobs so that we can get them back into work as quickly as possible. We have heard boast after boast about the Government's record on employment in the past few months—boasts that do not pass muster under scrutiny. So, we have had enough of the complacency and enough of the empty rhetoric about a record on employment that just does not reflect the reality. Let us see some real action before things can get any worse.