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Unemployment

I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman, because he has not been present throughout the debate. The final line of the Government amendment states, somewhat unbelievably, that the House""further believes that the Government should increase the support offered to people trapped on benefits by previous recessions."" So now we know: unemployment is all our fault. We have been occupying the Opposition Benches for the past 12 years, but little did we know that the present terrible economic impasse was our fault. Hang on a minute, though: let me bring Labour Members a little more up to date. Was it not this same Government who promised, in their 1997 manifesto,""We will introduce a budget within two months after the election to begin the task of equipping the British economy and reforming the welfare state to get young people and the long term unemployed back to work"?"