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The Budget

I accept the hon. Gentleman’s views of his own constituency—he knows it much better than I do—but the national assessments of the future jobs fund were that it did not provide lasting or sustainable employment. The work experience programme will help many young people find routes into work. It will help, I hope, people in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency as well as elsewhere. It sits alongside our investment in apprenticeships and our other measures to reform the welfare system, giving people greater incentives to get off benefit and into work. Announcements will be made shortly about the Work programme, a highly innovative scheme, which will provide real incentives to back-to-work providers to help people off benefit and into work, an objective that both of us share.