Social Security

Unlike my hon. Friend, I have no intention of doing so, if indeed he did so intend. Like him, I am concerned about any failures of the new deal to get people back into employment in relation to how it then impacts on the number of people who end up back on benefit. Is he aware that in my constituency just 30 per cent. of the people who go on to the new deal for lone parents get sustained, unsubsidised employment and that the number of young people who are on a repeated cycle of going through the new deal and ending up back on benefits is scandalous? To be lectured in the way that we have by the Minister today—as if right is solely on the Government side of the House and that we have no concern for people in that predicament—is appalling and flies in the face of the facts.