---

Work Programme (Wales)

It is a great honour to be here in Wrexham under the motto, ““Labor Omnia Vincit””—““Work conquers everything””. We have heard today how the Government’s policies are sadly hurting but not working. We have heard a catalogue of woes from across Wales. We have heard considerable concerns from the hon. Member for Arfon about how the work capacity assessment programme works, as well as the effects on child poverty of some of the Government’s policies. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East has told us tragic tales of people affected by those capacity assessments and how that is impacting on people’s lives and the difficulties that they face. We heard from the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd about the importance of SMEs, the crossover between private and public and the importance of sectoral policies, clustering, tourism and repairs, which was echoed by the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire. My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East spoke about the difficulties of women, who are often the key earners in their families. While she was talking about four people in her area chasing every job, which is bad enough, she knows as well as I do that there are many people from the surrounding areas also looking for work. In Llanelli, there are 10 people chasing every job, and in Neath, there are seven and a half people chasing every job. Where a job pays enough for someone to travel down to Swansea from Merthyr, where there are 18 people chasing every job, those people will try to get those jobs in Swansea, competing against the four in her own constituency who are looking for the same job. We heard from the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan about English enterprise zones. He could not tell us one advantage that they gave. Neither could he produce one single comparative figure between an area like the north-east of England and Wales. He simply gave some waffle about European figures.