11. What steps he is taking to get the long-term unemployed into work. (900443)

From next April, those hardest to help jobseekers returning from the Work programme will get the intensive support they need to get a job. A third will sign on every day; a third will go on community work placements for six months; and a third will receive intensive support from Jobcentre Plus.

Research for the Institute for Fiscal Studies shows that since 2010, the Government’s welfare reforms have already increased tax incentives to work and cut welfare disincentives by 6%. Does my hon. Friend agree that we must continue this recalibration of the system to end the dependency culture that the last Government left behind and ensure that hard work pays?

My hon. Friend is spot-on. That is exactly what we said we would do—a recalibration; a rebalancing of the economy—to get more people into private enterprise and to make fewer people state dependent. We have done that with 1.4 million jobs in the private sector. Opposition Members said that it was not possible. This is down to an environment that we have set and the great British businesses that have provided this employment.

It is good to be back. The Minister will be aware that a key barrier to many long-term unemployed women returning to work is the prohibitively high cost of child care. What is she doing to ensure that work will always pay once universal credit is implemented, given the concerning findings of the Resolution Foundation published yesterday showing the opposite to be the case?

I am very proud of our Government’s policies, which have got a record number of women into work and supported them into businesses and in setting up their own businesses. Of those in part-time work, 80% have chosen that work, some of which fits in with their life balance. We are supporting women with child care. That is a difficult job, especially as the price of child care went through the roof under Labour. We are particularly supporting them under universal credit, and, as I said, all credit to this Government.

I welcome the Minister to her place and encourage her to come to Norwich to see the steps that I and a really great team of volunteers are taking to get Norwich’s youth unemployment down. We call it Norwich for Jobs and we have already got literally hundreds of young people into work. Her predecessor had kindly agreed to visit the team; would she like to do the same?

If it was good enough for my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr Hoban), it is good enough for me, and I will be there.

Is it not the case that the Secretary of State has been rebuked not once but twice by the chair of the UK Statistics Authority for the misleading, if not false, claims that he is making about the welfare reform programme? Will he take the opportunity to apologise to the House and to the public at large, not least to those on social security, whom the Government continue to denigrate?

I will not be taking this moment to apologise, but I hope that those on the Labour Benches will apologise for the mess they left us, which we have corrected. Employment is up by 1 million since the election and unemployment is down by 400,000. Inactivity records are at an all-time low and the number of people not in employment, education or training is at the lowest rate for a decade. That is what we are doing, and the statistics we are putting out are correct. I am really disappointed that we cannot all celebrate the great work this Government have done.