Pre-Budget Report

In one moment. It would be wrong to argue that the Conservatives did nothing about unemployment in the 1980s and 1990s. They did: they changed the way that it was calculated 31 times. We put up with unemployment that had risen to 3 million. At the same time, the number of people on incapacity benefit rose. I remind the House that there are many people—[Interruption.] Yes, I do remember it. I remember what happened in the 1980s and 1990s, when, if I remember rightly, the shadow Chancellor was spending his time rather differently from the many people who were on the dole. Yes, there were two different pictures of Britain in the 1990s and people will remember that. I am not prepared to see the high economic and social costs of abandoning people to their fate, which is what the Conservative party argued then and what it is arguing now.