Madam Deputy Speaker, there are matters of greater moment before us today. The point has been made.
In all seriousness, the comments of the Secretary of State at the end of his speech were very well made and measured. He drew our attention to the single most important fact: this debate is not about cold statistics, but about real experience, real people, real lives, real hopes, real dreams and, in some cases, the dashing of those real dreams. However, when he referred to the marvellous blizzard of feel-good statistics it was almost as if Dr Pangloss had ridden out of the pages of “Candide” and tethered his horse to the Treasury Bench to tell us that this is the best of all possible worlds and that everything is well. I, like most people, respect the Secretary of State, but this is not the best of all possible worlds.
May I pray in aid, as I seldom do, the Office for National Statistics? The labour market statistics from 21 January—not last year, not 2010, but 2015—show that youth unemployment stands at 764,000, which is an increase of 30,000 on the previous quarter, and that long-term unemployment for 18 to 25-year-olds stands at 188,000.