Unemployment

My hon. Friend is right to remind us of what happened in the 1980s. Of course, that was the decade when the number of those left to languish on incapacity benefit went through the roof. Our motion calls on the Government to change course. We call on the Government to learn from today's figures, to remember our young people, and to listen to the worries of the over-50s. We want them to change course and give us a real plan for getting people back to work and for creating growth. We think that there is another way and that the Government need to listen, and fast. This is perhaps the last debate that I will lead for the Opposition this year. I want to conclude by looking ahead to an important anniversary next year—the 70th anniversary of the Beveridge report. I think that it is appropriate to mark the achievement of that very different kind of alliance; an alliance that genuinely acted in the national interest. The report was commissioned by a Labour Minister, written by a Liberal and welcomed by a nation. The Beveridge report provided the foundation for the welfare state created by the Attlee Administration. It was a welfare state that freed people from fear and it was created on the proceeds of full employment. I believe that the goal of full employment should once again be our aim. I hope that next year we can celebrate the achievement of that progressive alliance by rededicating ourselves to the idea that politics can make a difference, that politics can author the policies that get this country back to work once again, and that politics once again can offer this country freedom from fear. I commend the motion to the House.