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Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cirencester and Tewkesbury): The hon. Gentleman lists a catalogue of gloom and doom about the employment statistics. I have the figures for his constituency here. In December 1994 there were 4,914 unemployed, whereas in December 1995 there were 4,433. That represents a drop of almost 10 per cent. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will welcome that.

Mr. Purchase: I was moving on to that very point. It is an excellent illustration of the way in which the Government have tried to fiddle the unemployment figures.

Mr. Clifton-Brown: It cannot be a fiddle. Those are the figures.

Mr. Purchase: I am telling the hon. Gentleman that it is a fiddle and a farce. I shall give the real figures for my constituency. My figures were compiled by the economic development unit of the local authority, which takes them from proper census information rather than from the imagined benefit claimants on which the Government's figures are based.

Another 149 people have been claiming benefit in my constituency--149 additional people on top of the total of almost 4,000 men and women claiming benefit. I shall give the House some of the ward figures, which are accurate because they are based on proper, up-to-date information about people who are of economically active age, but who are not in work. In the Heath Town ward, 25 per cent. of all men are unemployed. In the Low Hill ward, 25 per cent. are unemployed. Those are the real figures.

However one tries to disguise the fact, the evidence of people's eyes and their experience shows that they are unemployed now, they were unemployed 12 months ago and, sadly, in 40 per cent. of cases they have been unemployed for much longer than 12 months. That is the sort of problem that we have to face.

Mr. Joseph Ashton (Bassetlaw): Is there not one loophole that states that anyone over the age of 50 who has not been gainfully employed for 10 years does not come under the rules? Surely that will help the Conservatives. After the next election, half their Members will not come under the criteria. They will still be able to claim.

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Mr. Purchase: My hon. Friend is right. That helps the Conservatives. It is appalling for my constituents and for everyone else's, but that is not part of the equation that they bring before us today, or any other day.

Let us move on and find out how else the Government have made the position so much worse and how much more they are spending on benefits and unemployment pay.

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt, but we are dealing with the regulations that relate to the jobseeker's allowance. Although it is in order to adduce various examples, I hope that this will not become a general debate on unemployment, because that is not the purpose of this afternoon's debate.

Mr. Purchase: I take your guidance on that matter, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am trying to show that the regulations will not assist in the way in which the Government say they will, because the problems lie deeper and, to some extent, are buried elsewhere. The regulations simply do not tackle the matters that the Government claim they are tackling. They will not assist my constituents and many others back into work, which is the express purpose of the regulations.

The question is: how much money is having to be spent and how could it be reduced without attacking people's benefit? The drive towards market rents in the local authority and housing association sectors means that rents have doubled and trebled. People are forced to stay unemployed because, if they work for the very low wages that some people are earning, they will not be able to meet any of the costs that they normally can because their benefits will be withdrawn. They will be in what we used to call, and still call, the poverty trap, because they will not get back into work, and they will not be assisted by the regulations.

I know that other hon. Members want to speak, but I want briefly to mention the way in which the Government deal with the problems. Boardroom scams in the privatised industries have been mentioned. This may be an old-fashioned, old-Labour way to put it, but I am proud to be associated in that sense with the sentiments that I am about to express. When a chief executive of a nationalised industry is given £250,000 in bonuses--earned or unearned--it is called market forces, and it is because we need to attract the right calibre of people into those jobs. They do not need a jobseeker's allowance--it is not on the cards. But when the labourer asks for an extra 2 per cent., it is a scandal and the ruination of the economy.

The hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) mentioned the minimum wage. He is not correct in saying that it would lead to X million job losses. That is not the evidence, which is that, in the short and medium term, employment would increase. The evidence shows that demand would increase within the economy and that, because that increase would be from those on the lowest incomes, home-manufactured goods would be purchased in the shops and in the high street, which would assist in getting people back into employment. That will happen when the labour market gets back into balance and people can properly demand a reasonable day's pay for a reasonable day's work.

Mr. Forth: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Earlier in the debate, I drew the attention of the House to the report of the Joint Committee on Statutory

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Instruments of yesterday's date, which pointed out printing errors in the regulations as laid before the House. Perhaps I made slightly heavy weather of dealing with the matter, but I did so in a spirit of openness, as I hope the House will accept. Labour Members expressed some concerns about the approach that I suggested. I have since had the benefit of conversations with Opposition Members, the authorities of the House and even more mysterious figures whom I dare not even mention because their anonymity is total. All the advice is that, since it is a printer's error and the Joint Committee's report makes that clear, it will be in order for that error to be corrected. If the House approves the regulations at the end of the debate, it can be corrected. That would be proper and that would be accepted. I hope that Opposition Members can accept that. I have raised the matter in good faith and that was the advice that I received. I hope that the House will be prepared to accept that that is how we should proceed in this important area.

Mr. Ian McCartney: Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I can confirm that the hon. Gentleman has had discussions with me and with what he claims to be other mysterious persons on the Opposition Front Bench. We have accepted his explanation in good faith. We have checked all his pockets, his wallet and other parts of his anatomy to ensure that he is not sneaking anything else through. On the basis that we could find nothing, we have accepted that this is simply another Government error--another bungle.

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. That seems to deal with the matter satisfactorily. I call the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan).

5.28 pm

Mr. Alan Duncan (Rutland and Melton): The rather large batch of regulations that we are debating today has the merit of fitting coherently into the Government's intellectual path in their reform of social security. Nothing points out more clearly the benefits of the Government's wider economic policy and the detail of the regulations under discussion than the fact that unemployment figures have fallen for the 28th month in succession. That is important to every individual who manages to get a job, although, sadly, the Opposition have acknowledged it so begrudgingly. The Government's economic policy is working, and the regulations that we are studying today will help that policy work further to the advantage of individuals to whom getting a job actually matters.

Ms Eagle: I thank the hon. Gentleman, to whom I always listen with interest. Does he realise that the regulations are not yet in force, therefore, by definition, they cannot possibly be working.

Mr. Duncan: Had she listened carefully, the hon. Lady would realise that I described the regulations as an extension of an economic and social security policy that is already in practice. It operates under the watchful eye of the Secretary of State, whose reforms have been to the advantage of the economy generally and the many individuals who have secured a job and have concentrated benefit on those who are most in need. It sits in stark contrast to the intellectual dishonesty of the Opposition that has been in clear evidence today.

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The Opposition say that the Government are financing mass unemployment. That slogan is designed to deceive. It is a concoction of two economically illiterate concepts in an attempt to convince the public that Opposition policies would somehow deliver more employment. Regulations that properly assess how the labour market and the housing market work will deliver the progress that we seek.

When the hon. Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney) accuses us of financing mass unemployment, is he saying that he would reduce what I loosely call unemployment benefit? Is he saying that he would stop paying those who are unemployed and compel them to take jobs and that if Labour were in government resources would be diverted into forcing people to accept work in sectors for which they are not appropriately trained? That is economic nonsense. The hon. Gentleman and his colleagues know that it is a deceit. They should go back to the drawing board and devise policies that are intellectually more honest.

The reforms are good because they have been thought through in considerable detail, which is here for us all to see in rather too many pages of regulations. None the less, the regulations are designed to work.

The House will recall that I spoke in the debate on Second Reading of the Bill that produced the regulations. The jobseeker's allowance has much merit in simplifying the benefit system and combining unemployment benefit and income support into a single benefit. I regret that Opposition Members have not welcomed the simplification of a system that has caused many distortions in the past. The reform is designed to address the distortions and remove the traps and disincentives that many people have faced in the past.

The regulations improve incentives to work. Perhaps I find a common cause with the hon. Member for Makerfield in seeking regulations that do not give individuals an undue incentive to remain out of work and on benefit. He and I agree on that, and it is the purpose of the regulations, yet he does not give them the welcome that they deserve.

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