"The right hon. Lady is leaping to a potential solution, but without thinking through the Government’s argument about why it would be a mistake. The whole point about providing capacity is that if one accepts the argument—I know she does not—that taking more children from Europe will mean that more …..." Lord Harper - View Speech
"I welcome the statement. Gloucestershire County Council has been a poorly funded local authority, so this will be welcomed in my county. I welcome the fact that sparsity will be taken into account, which is important in rural constituencies like mine. Will the Secretary of State confirm that, based on …..." Lord Harper - View Speech
"Female long-term unemployment has fallen by more than 90,000 on the year—the largest annual fall on record––to 237,000, demonstrating the success of the Government’s long-term economic plan...." Lord Harper - View Speech
"I am pleased the hon. Gentleman recognises that we have a long-term economic plan that is also successful—two things that the Labour party does not have. The previous Government removed people who were about to become long-term unemployed from the claimant count by putting them on training programmes. We have …..." Lord Harper - View Speech
"First, as I said in answer to the hon. Member for Livingston (Graeme Morrice), a record number of older women are in work and we have a record employment rate for older females—that is obviously good news. For those in the position that the hon. Lady sets out, we have …..." Lord Harper - View Speech
"I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her question and I will be visiting her constituency tomorrow to speak to local businesses—..." Lord Harper - View Speech
"The hon. Lady says, “What a surprise”, but my hon. Friend is holding an event to talk about getting more disabled people back into work with a number of excellent local employers. The hon. Lady should congratulate her on that, rather than being churlish about it.
"It is fascinating. Only a few weeks ago, in the debate on Labour’s job guarantee, the Secretary of State pointed out that Labour had spent the bank bonus tax 11 times with 11 different policies. If spending it for a 12th time is the best the hon. Lady can do, …..." Lord Harper - View Speech
"Over 3 million working-age disabled people are now in employment. There are 141,000 more disabled people in work than a year ago, and the employment rate has risen, demonstrating that disabled people are benefiting from the Government’s long-term economic plan...." Lord Harper - View Speech