Two things: first, record low unemployment means that there is tremendous opportunity for those people; and, secondly, wages across the board have not grown rapidly, so it is entirely right that constraint is applied to benefits.
Of course the Commission and member states will initially resist any deal that is not unambiguously seen as making the UK worse off from exiting the EU. I say that not to refight the battles of the past, but because if we expect the changes I have described, plan for them and manage them as the necessary consequences of the decisions we have taken, we will be better placed to see them through to opportunities in the long run. This is the beginning of a process of historic change in our nation, but it is a path we have chosen with our eyes open, through an exercise of our democratic rights, and we have many reasons to be optimistic. Government Members are now all on the same side, and we should seize the opportunities that this change of direction affords us.
6 pm