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Mark Versallion
Parliamentary Candidate for Stretford and Urmston

19Sep08

LABOUR ISN'T WORKING

Today the Conservative Party published a dossier on unemployment which outlines how Labour isn’t working.

Commenting, Conservative Parliamentary Candidate, Mark Versallion, said: “Time and time again, Labour ministers boast about the employment record and the jobs they have created in the last ten years. But when you read the small print of Government statistics, you find a very different picture. Youth unemployment is rising, the number of British people in work is falling fast and tens of thousands of unemployed people are deliberately excluded from the figures."

The number of people out of work has risen again to 1.72 million, increasing the headline rate of unemployment to 5.5%. Cllr Versallion added, "This is a dishonest approach to employment issues and it means ministers bury their heads in the sand as they come to believe in their own propaganda. This cynical approach of Government ministers means in effect that millions of struggling people are forgotten about.”


Notes to Editors

Claims of three million more jobs in Britain seem less impressive when it is revealed that up to 80% of those jobs have gone to migrant workers (Hansard, 12 March 2008, Col. 279; Statistics Commission, Foreign Workers in the UK, December 2007).

After eleven years of Labour Government there are almost five million people claiming out of work benefits and youth unemployment is higher than in 1997 (DWP, Quarterly Statistical Summary, August 2008; ONS, AGOL & AGPM series, September 2008).

Conservatives have set out clear plans to reform welfare and to equip people with the skills they need to find work. Our radical programme for welfare reform will mean no one is written off to a lifetime of benefits. We are planning a revolution in skills and training: we want to expand real workplace apprenticeships radically, building the skills our country so desperately needs. With 80% of new jobs having gone to migrant workers, we will manage immigration properly with an annual cap on non-EU migrants coming to the UK.