Vince Cable

My hon. Friend the Economic Secretary to the Treasury and I wish to inform both Houses that following our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs' oral statement launching the review of the balance of competences in July 2012 and written statement on the progress of the review in October 2012, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, HM Revenue and Customs and the Intellectual Property Office are publishing their calls for evidence.

The review of the internal market: free movement of goods is being jointly led by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and the Intellectual Property Office, (IPO), with HMRC taking a lead co-ordinating role. The review will consider the balance of competence over intra-EU trade in goods, the customs union and the protection of intellectual property.

The review of trade and investment is being led by BIS and will consider external trade (third country trade) and investment. However, given that trade in goods is a major theme for both reviews, the review teams will be co-ordinating their reviews closely.

The research and development review will cover research, technological development and space. As innovation is closely related to research and technological development, it will fall within the scope of this review.

The call for evidence period will last 12 weeks, from 16 May 2013 to 6 August 2013 and officials will draw together the evidence and policy analysis into draft reports, which will subsequently go through a process of scrutiny before publication in December 2013.

BIS, IPO and HMRC will take a rigorous approach to the collection and analysis of evidence. Each call for evidence sets out the scope of the report and includes a series of broad questions on which contributors are asked to focus. Interested parties are invited to provide evidence with regard to political, economic, social and technological factors. The evidence received (subject to the provision of the Data Protection Act) will be published alongside the final reports in December 2013 and will be available on the Government website www.gov.uk.

The Departments will pursue an active engagement process, consulting widely across Parliament and its Committees, businesses, the devolved Administrations and civil society in order to obtain evidence to contribute to our analysis of the issues. Our EU partners and the EU institutions will also be invited to contribute evidence to the reviews. As the reviews are to be objective and evidence based, we are encouraging a wide range of interested parties and individuals to contribute.

The results of the reports will be a comprehensive, thorough and detailed analysis. It will aid our understanding of the nature of our EU membership and it will provide a constructive and serious contribution to the wider European debate about modernising, reforming and improving the EU. The reports will not produce specific policy recommendations.

The calls for evidence documents are being placed in the Libraries of both Houses. They are also published and available on the Government website: https://www.gov.uk/review-of-the-balance-of-competences.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) on securing this Adjournment debate and on the very passionate and lucid way in which he set out his case. He has been an assiduous constituency MP when faced with a major closure and a lot of personal hurt. I very much admired how he presented his case and how he brought together the local community-the trade unions and the council as well as the business. He raises an important issue about a big international corporate, which in my role as Business Secretary I support in many of its overseas operations. Tesco is a big operation, making £300 million in profit, as the hon. Gentleman described. He has pointed to a big gulf between the nationally declared set of objectives and principles, which I am sure are sincerely intended, and the way in which the local management has applied them in an insensitive way and with poor communication.

What I found most appalling in what the hon. Gentleman said were the threats to individual employees. I sincerely hope that the transcript of this debate will be read by people higher up the company, who will then better understand what has been happening in Harlow. I hope that he will understand that, for the most part, this is an individual commercial decision, in which I cannot interfere

as a legal process is involved, but he has left me with some basic issues of principle about the interpretation of the agency workers legislation. I will ask my officials to go away and reflect on whether any wider lessons are to be learned.

Let me take the hon. Gentleman's points in turn. The loss of 800 jobs has, of course, been a big shock to his community. That is a lot of jobs, and difficult issues related to redundancy are involved. Those issues are not unique to this case, but it is a big closure, and I understand why he is concerned about it.

UK retail is a very competitive business. All retailers are constantly innovating, which, ultimately, is good for consumers. The current climate has required UK retailers to think again about the services that they offer, which frequently leads them to re-engineer their businesses and combine all the various retail channels so that they offer the consumer a seamless, integrated, flexible experience. As we have seen in the case of several of the leading retailers, that may involve the upgrading and relocation of distribution centres. I think that the hon. Gentleman indicated that there were other examples as well.

It does not always follow that there are staff redundancies. In many instances, employers are able to offer workers alternative jobs or the opportunity to relocate. The hon. Gentleman mentioned correspondence from which it appears that Tesco tried to relocate some jobs, although not in a way that he found very satisfactory. For some, however, redundancies may end up being the only option. Employers will have, or should have, made reasonable efforts to find and offer suitable alternative employment. In such cases, employees have a wide range of rights, including the right to be consulted about redundancies and the right to a minimum notice period, and ultimately they are protected under law against unfair dismissal.

While it is clearly desirable for employers to give their workers as much notice as possible of changes that might affect their employment, that cannot always be done. However-I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is aware of this, as he is clearly in close contact with USDAW-employers are under a statutory obligation to provide minimum periods of notice and to consult employees before they can be made redundant. I understand that a formal consultation is taking place in line with the statutory obligations, following which Tesco intends to serve notice on affected staff.

That brings me to the issue of the terms on which the contracts could be renegotiated, and the issue of pay. It is always open to either party to seek renegotiation of the terms of an employment contract, and there will be a variety of reasons for that to be done. I think it was acknowledged in the Queen's Speech debate that has just taken place that in many cases workers have accepted lower pay as the price of keeping jobs. That is often what we mean by the rather bland word "flexibility". The hon. Gentleman clearly feels that it has been unfair in this case, but it has frequently been a necessary part of adjustment to local labour market conditions.

We have been in touch with Tesco about this case. It has told my officials that its pay rates vary between distribution sites, and that-it says that this action was exceptional-it has offered to protect the pay of staff transferring to Dagenham at 100% for a year before implementing its existing company pay protection policy.

I understand from what the hon. Gentleman said earlier that that does not cover future years or overtime, and that there are other exclusions.

An employer may not change the terms of any employment without the employee's agreement. In most cases, responsible employers are already implementing good practice and complying with the law, but as the hon. Gentleman will know, the Government have developed a range of measures to resolve workplace issues as soon as possible, and to enable early conciliation and mediation to be sought. As a last resort, an employee can seek legal redress through the courts or by presenting a claim to an employment tribunal.

The hon. Gentleman raised a series of issues relating to inequalities of treatment. I noted what he said about the apparent favouritism given to management as opposed to less senior staff, and in particular, his point about agency workers who use the "pay between assignments" model which is often described as the Swedish derogation. The issues are complex because different categories are involved, but I shall try to deal with them in broad terms.

As the hon. Gentleman mentioned, workers in this category do not qualify for equal pay under the agency workers regulations. Instead they become permanent employees of a temping agency. Importantly, they are entitled to be paid between assignments at the rate of at least 50% of the pay they have received, usually in the prior 12 weeks of work. Pay between assignment contracts gives agency workers more certainty about their pay when an assignment ends. Just like other types of contract, such as part-time or fixed-term, they will not be suitable for all people. What is important is that individuals and businesses have a choice about the type of contracts available to them so we maximise the opportunities for individuals to find work suitable for their particular situation. He has, however, raised in trenchant terms the failure of this particular model, and we will look at the implications of that.

Turning to the issue of the disabled, the hon. Gentleman gave some moving and worrying accounts of the way in which individuals had been dealt with at the Harlow plant, and the reference to the threats was particularly troubling. Let me address the broad issue of disabled workers, however. Provisions to address disability discrimination are set out in the Equality Act 2010. Among other things, the Act aims to prevent discrimination against disabled people in employment, and in this particular case certain legal aspects will need to be pursued. One of the ways the Act aims to prevent discrimination is by requiring employers to make reasonable adjustments where a disabled person is put at a substantial

disadvantage in comparison with non-disabled persons. The Act seeks to achieve a balance between the rights of disabled people and the interests of employers, and employers are therefore only required to make adjustments that are reasonable. Factors such as the cost and practicability of making an adjustment have to be taken into account. I trust that Tesco has taken the necessary steps to assist disabled employees to progress and remain within its organisation. Ultimately, it would be for an employment tribunal to decide whether an adjustment would be reasonable.

The Act also requires employers to ensure that any redundancy criteria and procedures do not indirectly discriminate against disabled employees. They must consider whether any procedures they adopt which apply to all employees might have a particularly adverse effect on disabled employees in general, and would place a disabled employee at a particular disadvantage. Again, I am sure Tesco has taken the necessary precautions, but an individual can, of course, seek the support of ACAS in resolving a matter or seek redress through a tribunal.

My officials have been in contact with Tesco over the closure of the Harlow site. The Minister of State for business and enterprise, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon), wrote to the hon. Gentleman in March and told him that Tesco had accepted an offer of support through the rapid response service. This service is available to employers and employees facing redundancy, and draws together the various partner agencies. Since then, working with the local partner organisation and Harlow council, the response service has begun delivering presentations to all staff facing redundancy. Presentations took place this week, and a further session is scheduled for next week. Follow-up support in the form of a jobs fair will also be arranged at the end of May.

As I have said, a formal employee consultation is currently under way which is due to finish at the end of this month. It is, of course, important that this consultation is allowed to run its course without interference from the Government, and I am sure the hon. Gentleman will understand that I cannot interfere with that process. He has left me with some homework to do, however, in pursuing the particular issues around these laws as applied to agency workers, and I am sure he will acquaint the senior management of Tesco with what has been said in this debate, which reflects very badly on its national reputation. I am also sure that by achieving this Adjournment debate he will have taken a big step forward in helping these workers.

Question put and agreed to.

House adjourned.

indicated dissent.

As the hon. Gentleman may at some future stage in history occupy this role-he is obviously preparing for it-let me clarify one thing. Is he at all familiar with state aid rules? If so, he will know that under the rules of the European Union, it is necessary to obtain approval before a bank can operate fully in the competitive market of the European Union. That is why 2014 has been cited-because we respect those rules. None the less, we are using the resource we have in the short term to provide support for business. That is what we are doing.

Instead of looking for information in IMF reports, perhaps the shadow Business Secretary should look at some of the business before the House. I do not know whether he is aware that we made a written ministerial statement a few weeks ago explaining exactly where we were with the business bank. At the moment it

is marketing its first tranche of funding. We have a substantial team in BIS of people with banking experience recruited from the private sector. He is welcome to come in and talk to them. I think he will find that there is a substantial acknowledgement in the small business community that what we are doing is exactly right and on target. If he wants to question our delivery more generally, he should perhaps read what I said in Edinburgh yesterday about the substantial progress we are making with the other bank, the green investment bank.

rose-

Funding for lending is an important and valuable step forward. As I am sure my hon. Friend would acknowledge, it predominantly affects the mortgage market rather than the SME lending market, but it is an important initiative. I do not think that we are talking about forced lending here, and we should not be talking about that; we should be talking about how we change the risk appetite of banks. Some of the Government's key interventions, such as the enterprise guarantee scheme and the new schemes for export finance, are crucial to changing the balance of risk. They work with the grain of the market, and that is the way we should deal with this issue.

I conclude on the banking issue, because it is the big legacy problem we have to deal with, along with the enormous deficit, which is painful and difficult but on which we are making real headway. The key point is that despite those problems, some real signs of hope are beginning to emerge: we have rapid growth in private sector employment; record levels of start-ups in the private sector; a growing sense of entrepreneurial energy and commitment in the UK; and a rapid growth in exports to some of the emerging markets, where future demand lies. There is every reason to be optimistic, and the legislative programme we are setting out will reinforce those positive trends.

Yes, there is an issue with the demand for loans. It is not simply a question of aggregate demand in an economic sense. Many small companies have been discouraged from applying and we need to overcome that handicap. On the wider question, I know that the Chancellor is listening carefully to this debate. I read the contribution of the former Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling), who suggested that the key issue was value for money for the taxpayer. I agree completely.

There is one major bank that has predominant Government ownership. That does not give the Government powers to lend, because there are significant independent shareholders and the hon. Gentleman will be familiar with the corporate governance problems that presents. We would like RBS to lend more, and Mr Hester explained this weekend that he has a significant amount of capital available.

The hon. Gentleman is right that myth-busting is an important part of what we need to do. However, in order to deal with myth-busting, we must also deal with genuine abuses. I hope he understands that. I am grateful for his first comment-I am trying to lower the temperature of the debate and to get us to deal with fact rather than myth. I am trying to have a proper balance that recognises the very substantial economic importance of managed migration to this country alongside the measures we must take to deal with abuse.

A large part of the Leader of the Opposition's speech was devoted to the continuing problems in banking and the financial sector, and many of the current problems with the economy relate to the aftermath of the banking crisis. We have got to a situation in which banks-partly under pressure from regulators, and partly as a result of learning from their mistakes-have moved to a position of fairly extreme risk aversion. If we are to ensure that credit flows to small business, which is the motor of the economy, that needs to change.

There is some evidence that the situation is beginning to change. Some banks, such as Lloyds, HSBC and the trade finance market, are showing positive trends, as is Barclays. The head of Royal Bank of Scotland made it clear at the weekend that he has £20 billion-worth above his liquidity buffers and capital requirements available for small and medium-sized enterprise loans. We hope SMEs take advantage of that.

However, the position we are dealing with is genuinely difficult. In the light of banks' previous misfortunes, they are operating what I call a pawnbroker model of banking, under which people need collateral, whether a gold watch or property, to secure a business loan. That is massively inhibiting for, for example, a creative industry that does not have such collateral, or an export company that is trying to trade on the basis of orders, or simply for a good company with a good business idea and a good business plan that is unable to get into expansionary mode because of the crippling effects of bank credit restriction.

The Government are trying to deal with the problem in a series of practical steps. We clearly need to do more, but it is worth summarising some of the steps we are taking. We have a sophisticated system of developing supply chain finance-the advanced manufacturing supply chain initiative. Work is being done with Kingfisher and others in the private sector to support trade finance outside the banking system. We have a £1 billion fund that now supports non-bank finance, which is proliferating rapidly. We have crowd-sourced funding, invoice finance

and non-conventional forms of lending. The Financial Services Authority and, currently, the Financial Conduct Authority, relaxed rules on the establishment of new banks. Within the next year or so, we will hopefully have a lot more banks, based on the model of Aldermore and Handelsbanken.

Probably the most important step, and one that underpins the others, is the work we are doing with the business bank. We have £1 billion of start-up capital. The first £300 million is being marketed to support new banks and long-term patient capital, which can be raised in the City, and to support equity through angel networks. A crucial test of our policy in the coming months will be the speed with which we can get that capital into the market to relieve the genuine constraints.

I listened carefully to try to establish what, if anything, Opposition Members wanted to add to the debate, because the problem is a genuinely difficult one, and because Labour presided over the banking collapse. If I understand them correctly, the big new idea is regional banking. It is a good idea, and I want it to be explained and developed. It has been forgotten that, 15 years ago, we had regional banking-they were called building societies. I have a vivid recollection of that period because I was chairman of Save Our Building Societies, working with one or two Opposition colleagues, particularly the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr Love), to try to stop the demutualisation of building societies.

I believe demutualisation began originally with the noble Lord Lawson, but it is worth recalling that, in the first five years of the Blair Government, we lost most of our regional banks. It is worth itemising what happened to them: Bradford and Bingley collapsed and was nationalised, and is now part of Santander; Birmingham Midshires bank is now part of Lloyds; Northern Rock in Newcastle collapsed and is now part of the Virgin group; Woolwich is now part of Barclays; Halifax is now part of Lloyds; and Alliance and Leicester is now part of Santander. We had regional banking, and it went. I would love to see it recreated, but that is like turning omelettes back into eggs. I am all ears as to how that can be done. If it can be done, I am very much in favour of it, because we need much more diversity and competition in banking.

That is essentially the point I am trying to make. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can communicate his message to the shadow Home Secretary, who has a slightly different take on those things.

My essential point is that there are positives, and we need to stress them in the current atmosphere. However, we also need to provide reassurance, which is what the Government are seeking to do in two main ways. First, when people come to this country, we should acknowledge a distinction between the rights to work and to claim benefits, which is at the heart of people's sense of citizenship and belonging. My colleague the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions will explain how we want to ensure that British citizens and not people from overseas receive benefits. The sense of abuse in that sector fuels much of the current anxiety.

The second source of concern is the belief that the laws and restrictions we have should be enforced. There are measures in the Immigration Bill to try to ensure that the private sector, particularly the property sector, plays its role in enforcing them. Those restrictions will have to be subject to a proper regulatory impact assessment and, under the one in, two out principle, they will have to demonstrate that they do not impose red tape on small business. Provided that happens, I hope the combination of actions that have been taken in respect of the benefits system and enforcing the law will be

sufficient to reassure the public, or those people who are willing to be reassured, that managed immigration is very much in the national interest.

Yes, I do. It is, of course, important to train people in the UK where possible, and one of the drivers behind the apprenticeship programme is that of ensuring we build up our scandalously neglected skills

base. Where there are genuine vacancies, it is important that people are able to move freely. If the hon. Lady is able to bring cases to my Department, we will try to work with the Home Office to ensure that those people are able to come.

The third group of people are not immigrants at all but visitors. We wish to maintain our reputation as an economy that is open for business, and millions of people come to the UK to do business, shop, visit family and friends, or as tourists. It is important that they can do that with as few visa restrictions as possible, and where there are visa restrictions, we must ensure they are dealt with quickly and effectively. The Government are currently working hard, particularly with countries such as China, to ensure that the system works better.

Finally, there is the issue of the so-called single market within the EU. When the single market was introduced, it was made clear that one core element is the so-called four freedoms: the freedom of trade in goods; the freedom of trade in services; the freedom of capital movements; and the freedom of worker movements. They are at the heart of free trade. I am often baffled by people outside the Chamber who clamour for free trade with Europe but denounce the free market, because they are the same thing.

Modern trade relationships-there are very few restrictions on physical trade in goods these days-frequently involve people moving backwards and forwards. That is the nature of modern trading relationships, and we must uphold it within the EU.

That is true and the core of the policy. There is no cap on legal immigration for students, not just for universities but also properly accredited colleges. There is also a right to work subsequently in graduate-level employment, and I hope that information will be made more widely available.

The second crucial group of people are those with key skills. The Government exempt inter-company transfers from the cap on immigration. There are many key individuals in management, banking and engineering specialties, and in a highly specialised economy we will have more and more demand for services of that kind. The Home Secretary has gone to considerable lengths to remove some of the impediments surrounding visas for people who are needed by British industry and are an important part of our economy.

That should not be the case, and the Prime Minister has gone out of his way-as he did on a recent visit to India-to make it clear that we welcome valid, legal overseas student visitors to the UK. That is our policy and we are encouraging it.

I spend a good deal of time discussing that issue with the Home Office, and I will come on to students in a moment as they are a crucial category.

In order to clear the decks for an honest discussion of this problem, we must confront the reality that some of the facts, or factoids, used in this context are deeply unhelpful. All parties and commentators use the concept of net immigration as a way of measuring what is happening on that front, but at the heart of that concept lies a logical absurdity. One reason net immigration rises is because fewer British people emigrate-one would have thought it rather a good thing that people feel comfortable living in this country and want to stay here. Net immigration declines if more British people emigrate, which one would have thought is rather a bad thing. We often operate, therefore, with a concept that gives us misleading and unhelpful conclusions.

Similarly, the biggest item in immigration-this relates to the previous intervention-and the biggest category of people regarded as immigrants are overseas students. Of course, overseas students are not immigrants; that is not why they come here. A few stay on-indeed, I probably contributed to immigration statistics 50 years ago when I married someone who was then a student at the university of York. For the most part, however, people come to the UK to study and then go home. They are not immigrants, but by way of a quirk-not in our statistics, but those of the United Nations-they are regarded as immigrants and we must acknowledge that in our debates.

Setting aside prejudices and anxieties, it is important to acknowledge that in some key areas immigration makes an important and positive contribution to the UK. The first category is the one we have just been discussing: students. Overseas students contribute about £9 billion a year to the UK economy. They also contribute in other ways, but education is one of our most successful export industries. The Government have tried to curb abuses that were taking place. People were using bogus colleges as a route to illegal immigration, and those have been closed. Once we have established the principle of legality, students make a positive contribution, and I would see a negative trend in students coming to the UK as a problem rather than an achievement.

The hon. Gentleman makes the same point I was making. The Government are pursuing that matter through the civil courts and there are substantial penalties. It is an HMRC task, but I take the point that we should perhaps make the message more easily available. Employers should not get away with the idea that they should ignore this.

Let me say a bit about a difficult area of policy in which issues of unemployment and low pay intersect: migration, which is one of the most important reforms that the Government will introduce. I was hesitant about raising the subject because it is essentially covered by the Home Office, but substantial economic issues are also involved and it is important to refer to them. I was provoked into feeling that we should debate the issue in this context because a couple of days ago I was on the radio on the "Jeremy Vine" programme. I was following a female voice that was ranting on about millions of

illegal immigrants and the negligence of the Government in letting them all in and not deporting enough people. I thought at the time that it was some fringe party that regarded Mr Nigel Farage as a sort of soggy, left-wing liberal, but I then realised it was the Labour shadow Home Secretary, and I tried to understand where she was coming from. It says quite a lot about the Labour party's current values that it feels it necessary to apologise for letting in foreigners, but is still reluctant to apologise for wrecking the economy.

I vividly recall a conversation I had with a constituent, shortly before the last general election. She was taking me to task for what she said were millions of illegal immigrants in the country and, rather recklessly perhaps, I decided to debate the subject with her. I asked, "How do you know?", and she said, "Well, I see them in the high street the whole time." I said, "Okay, but how do you know they are illegal?" She looked at me and said, "Mr Cable, why are you being so difficult? You know exactly what I mean", and pointed up the road to the Hounslow mosque. Unfortunately, beneath a lot of the arguments about numbers, that is the prejudice we are trying to confront. We must, I think, make the case-I certainly intend to make it-for managed immigration that has a positive impact on the country, while at the same time providing the necessary level of reassurance.

I am sure that the trade unions play a part in bringing this matter to the attention of the authorities. Every complaint is investigated. Some come from the trade unions and I welcome the role that they play.

I will finish my point and then take the intervention.

The Leader of the Opposition pointed to the apparently low level of enforcement of the minimum wage and the limited number of prosecutions. That worried me at the time, so I checked the history. I discovered that in the last four years of the Labour Government, the number of prosecutions under this flagship policy was two a year. We have therefore maintained a rather similar practice.

I have asked for an interview with the head of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, who is responsible for prosecutions, to establish why the level is so low, because this is a perfectly legitimate issue. I have discovered that a large number of companies are being pursued under civil proceedings, where the maximum penalty is £5,000 a year. The matter is therefore being enforced assiduously, but not through the criminal system. I will establish why we are not doing that and whether we should be doing more to underpin the rights of some of the lowest-paid people in society.

It is not complacent to acknowledge the extent to which we have serious problems, which is where I started, or to compare the country with economies that are suffering similar problems. For those who are rightly focused on unemployment among young people, the simple truth is that long-term youth unemployment rose by 40% in the boom years when the Labour party was in power. Labour Members are therefore not in a strong position to lecture us on how to deal with it.

We have focused on two policy areas to deal with the problem of youth unemployment. I am most closely involved in the growth of apprenticeships and my colleague, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, will talk about the other. We have all embraced apprenticeships, including, rather belatedly, the Opposition. There is a recognition among employers and young people that it is an excellent model for training. Under this Government, the number of apprenticeship starts has increased by 86%. There were 160,000 last year. There has been a 42% growth in the number of young people starting apprenticeships. We are making reforms that will improve the system further, notably the employer ownership system, under which apprenticeship training will be channelled through employers so that there is the demand for real jobs. We are also introducing a staged approach through traineeships, so that young people have a route into proper training.

A difficult area is that what has kept unemployment down in the UK is the fact that real wages have not risen. Indeed, they have fallen. That was the main focus of attack from the Leader of the Opposition. We need to understand and explain what has happened. The British economy was hit massively by the financial crisis. We are a significantly poorer country than we were before that time, although we are now recovering. The impact of that has been felt predominantly through the reduction of wages in real terms.

We are trying to mitigate that impact in two major ways. The first is by lifting low earners out of tax, which increases their disposal income even though their pre-tax income may have fallen. The effect of that is that people on the minimum wage are paying half the income tax that they paid before we embarked on that reform. We have also taken 2.7 million out of income tax altogether. Secondly, and this is my direct responsibility, we have ignored the advice from some quarters to abandon the minimum wage or to dilute it. I have followed the advice of the Low Pay Commission on the minimum wage.

One of the points that the Leader of the Opposition made in his speech-

There is no such activity in Britain. There were cases of people working without pay and my colleague, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, intervened to stop that practice operating on the back of the benefits system.

We acknowledge that there is one category of people among whom unemployment is worryingly high: young people. The Leader of the Opposition focused on that issue. About 1 million young people are unemployed. That figure is worrying, but we should recall that the level of young people's unemployment, which is approaching 20%, is virtually the same as the level we inherited.

It is also worth recalling that a third of the figure is made up of full-time students. It has always struck me as a little odd that we regard full-time students as unemployed, but that is what the statistics show. If we strip that out, there is still a significant level of youth unemployment, which is worrying.

It is useful, as I did on the wider figures, to contrast youth unemployment in this country with that in comparable countries. In France, youth unemployment is 24%, in Sweden, which perhaps should be a role model, it is 24%, in Italy it is 35% and in Spain it is 45%. The Economist, as some Members will know, has been running a series on the global problem of youth unemployment. We share that problem, but in many ways we are outperforming comparable economies.