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Unemployment

The hon. Lady is right—that is important. Losing overtime and hours is clearly a challenge. However, the right response is the tax credits policy, which we introduced. It will significantly cushion the reduction in people's funds, but I believe that the Liberal Democrats oppose it. The right response to people who must reduce their hours is to say that the tax credits policy will help cushion that. She might like to discuss not opposing it with her colleagues. Under the Conservatives, the rapid response service would be rolled back. The right hon. Member for Maidenhead nearly said some kind words about Jobcentre Plus. I agree with the hon. Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) that it has done an incredibly good job. Many people already recognise it as world class, but, in the past few months, it has really earned that reputation. For example, despite the doubling of the claims with which it deals, we are processing claims in 10 days, down from 13 days two years ago. The right hon. Lady said that it was wrong to close jobcentres, but I thought that Conservative party policy was to make public services more efficient. We have done exactly that. We have improved the service that people get and reduced the time that they have to wait to get their benefits, while decreasing spending on back-office processing and increasing front-line advisers. We have made the welfare state more active by making it more efficient. I would have thought that she supported that.