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Work and Skills

That is a reasonable point. In the broader context, the National Economic Council, the regional economic councils that are being developed and the regional councils for Ministers are addressing the issue of unemployment, and working with local authorities and regional development agencies on that. I have yet to attend a council for Regional Ministers so the name of my hon. Friend escapes me, which I am sure will assist the hon. Gentleman in his attempt to be facetious—[Interruption.] No, the east of England has not escaped me—[Interruption.] Well, that is a matter for the hon. Gentleman. The serious point was about the National Economic Council and regional economic development, and how unemployment fits in with that. That point was fairly made and I shall ensure that the hon. Gentleman gets a little paper outlining those structures. I do not know about the east of England, but I know that the east midlands already has in place regional economic forums that meet regularly to bring together all the key partners, including the RDA, the private sector, Jobcentre Plus and others, to discuss economic development and address any deterioration in the labour market. In any case, I say well done to the hon. Gentleman for making his facetious point. There continues to be a real dynamism in the labour market. There is a huge churn in jobs and vacancies, with people coming on to jobseeker's allowance and coming off it too. The picture is not static. The House will know that there are regularly as many as 600,000 vacancies, but that figure is also subject to churn. Some vacancies never reach those statistics because they are filled before they can be correlated with the figures.