It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), who spoke passionately and eloquently on behalf of her constituents. It should be stated, however, that the figures imply that the success of Wigan’s economy is much greater than she indicated. Figures from the Library show that the number of jobseeker’s allowance claimants in Wigan is down by 35%, and the most fantastic thing is that youth unemployment has gone down by 55% in a year. We would kill for such a reduction in Wales, but we have the dead hand of a Labour Welsh Government in Cardiff who have no intention whatever of working with the national Government to deal with youth unemployment.
In my constituency, we have seen a drop in unemployment, including youth unemployment and long-term unemployment, which the people of the constituency have welcomed. However, young people on the Work programme are not allowed access to educational programmes, because the Welsh Government refuse any Work programme client access to any programme using funding from the European social fund. They do that to try to ensure that the Work programme fails, and it is left to me and other Conservative Members from Wales to put on job fairs.