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Work and Skills

My hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins) is in his place. Pointing to attendance is an easy game to play and I shall not get into it. I firmly and passionately believe that the Ulster Unionist party, Plaid Cymru, the SNP, the rest of the Liberal Democrats and my colleagues share our concerns about unemployment. I am not about to suggest at any stage in my speech that Labour Members, present or absent, have a monopoly on sentiment when it comes to the serious issue of unemployment—[Interruption.] Well, they are busy doing other things, probably not least helping people in their constituencies, given that this debate is subject to a one-line Whip. That is entirely a matter for them. The hon. Gentleman's first point, about the trends in unemployment and the extent to which we might see a rise in longer-term and harder-to-reach unemployed, is well made, and it goes to the point that I was about to make. Now is not the time to flinch on conditionality, pathways to work or providing active support for the unemployed. That happened—I am not making a political point—in the early 1980s, and we need to learn the lessons of that. I am happy to suggest that the Opposition have learned those lessons. Conditionality and helping the longer-term unemployed back into work remain uppermost in the work of Jobcentre Plus.