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Economic Affairs and Work and Pensions

I can answer many questions, but I cannot say what the last Labour Government did as they toured Europe destroying all those economies, so I am afraid I cannot help the right hon. Gentleman. All I know is that we have spent huge sums, much of it not carefully adjusted to see whether it was working, including the future jobs fund, about which I was asked earlier. The issue is not that it was not creating jobs, but that the jobs that were being created were more than likely to be temporary, they were nowhere near the number originally projected, and the cost of the programme was running out of control. Everyone wants to create jobs and stop the wage scar for the young unemployed, but I must tell the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford that we face a nightmare in which we have to look at the spending to make sure that whatever we spend delivers real life change. We will be doing that with welfare reform to try to make it much easier for people to get back to work, and to make sure that the money they earn is real money and means that going to work pays. We will reform pensions. The right hon. Lady and her party managed to lower the level of life chances for far too many people in this country, and it is the coalition Government who now set out to help the young, the unemployed and the impoverished in Britain once and for all. Question put, That the amendment be made. The House divided: Ayes 247, Noes 343.