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Unemployment in the UK

I share my hon. Friend's concerns. There are areas in the Welsh valleys, very close to my constituency, where there are very high levels of worklessness, which is extremely damaging to entire communities. Despite huge efforts, the Government have not managed sufficiently to reduce persistent poverty levels in the UK. That is one of their failings. I want to flag up the issue of rising youth unemployment. Gordon Brown—[Interruption.] Sorry; the Prime Minister said in 1995, when he was shadow Chancellor, that no young person should spend years without a job, and he pledged that no young person would do so under Labour. However, the new deal for young people has not been as successful as the Government hoped. Youth unemployment is higher than in 1997, and it is rising. It is up 172,000 on its lowest point, which was reached back in 2001. Worklessness among the 18-to-24 age group is worsening for every single category, including those who have been unemployed for up to six months, those unemployed for between six and 12 months, those unemployed for more than 12 months and those unemployed for more than 24 months. It is very worrying for the future that so many young people are unemployed. The figures are significantly worse than they were when the new deal for young people was first rolled out. Worryingly, we are talking about an underlying trend; the recent economic turmoil cannot be blamed for the situation, as the figures were similar last year. That trend needs to be tackled. The new deal for lone parents, which the Secretary of State mentioned, has been more of a success, although the picture is mixed. Fewer parents with children over the age of 12 have volunteered to participate than was hoped, but it seems to have been reasonably successful; of those who participated whose youngest child was over the age of 12, about half left immediately to go into employment. I am somewhat confused about why the Government are moving lone parents from a programme that appears to be reasonably successful to a sanctions regime under jobseeker's allowance, given that research from the Department for Work and Pensions itself found that lone parents did not respond to sanctions by going into work. They often did not realise why they had been sanctioned, as they were not certain about how much benefit they should have been on in the first place. That is unsurprising, given the rate of error in the benefits and tax credits systems. My main concern about the changes that the Government propose, and the impact on unemployment, relates to the economic climate, which we are all discussing. Introducing conditionality for claimants will mean that if they do not get work, they will face sanctions or have to go into workfare. That seems to be a wrong target, particularly with respect to those furthest from the job market—those who are disabled, who have been out of work for a long time, who have very low skills levels, who are lone parents or who have additional caring responsibilities. The job market is becoming increasingly challenging for those who are out of work, and employers are increasingly calling the shots. They can afford to be choosy, and those who are furthest from the job market are most likely really to struggle to get into work. It seems wrong to make them face sanctions. We should not punish those who cannot get into work. Instead, the Government should do more to work with employers, and to tackle the barriers faced by lone parents, those with disabilities and others. They should consider demand as well as supply. I take issue with some of the points made by the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell. Under Conservative Governments in the 1980s, there were more than 3 million people unemployed, a figure that we have not even come close to hitting in recent years. As was highlighted by the Secretary of State, when the figures were looking particularly bad for the previous Conservative Government, rather than tackling the issues, they moved people on to incapacity benefit to get them away from the unemployment figures. That created huge numbers of problems that the current Government are still trying to tackle. It created a hard core of people who have not worked for years, who are out of touch with the job market, and who do not have relevant job skills. It makes it even more difficult for people who are suffering from horrendous physical and mental health problems to enter the job market. The cost to the health service and the economy, and the cost in terms of family breakdown among those who are struggling, has far-reaching consequences for British society, so it is a little rich for Conservative Members to preach to the Government about the problems created by unemployment.