Welfare Reform Bill

I am sorry, but the figures speak for themselves. There are job opportunities in the retail sector almost all the time, but my argument is that it does not give people careers. Employers want people who are fodder to take money on the tills, but they do not train them for a career in retail. The turnover every year is huge. It is true that a person who was working yesterday will have more chance of getting a job tomorrow than a person who has been out of work for two years, but that is precisely why so many of the proposals in the Bill are about assisting people and helping them to develop their skills background and CV experience. The aim is to make people more employable. The alternative is to do nothing, and we have seen in the past what happens when Governments do nothing. Sadly, the Government of the 1980s did not do nothing: they cut benefits and the state earnings-related pension scheme, and they froze child benefit for three years. The 1988 changes to income support took away the long-term rate for lone parents, so it is clear that that Government reduced people's income. In the recession of the 1990s, the wages councils were abolished, with the result that wage levels were reduced and poverty increased. Not one job opportunity resulted from that, but if hon. Members from Scotland are happy to go back to that situation, they should do so.