Oral Answers to Questions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Monday 23rd April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

The Pensions Regulator communicates regularly with trustees and provides a trustee toolkit on its website that sets out their duties, but I think that auto-enrolment provides an opportunity for ethical investment. For example, the National Employment Savings Trust will specifically have an ethical fund for those who wish to invest in that way, and I hope that the schemes my hon. Friend refers to will seek to find investment through that sort of route.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

16. What recent estimate he has made of the level of unemployment in Bristol.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)]

The latest estimate for the level of International Labour Organisation unemployment in Bristol, produced by the Office for National Statistics, is 21,400.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Does the Minister know whether the Prime Minister, on his visit to Bristol today, will take the time to meet some of those affected by long-term unemployment, which is up by 72% in the past year and a staggering 15,000% among young people, or was the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Nadine Dorries) correct when she described the Prime Minister and the Chancellor on the “Daily Politics” show today as

“two arrogant posh boys who show no remorse, no contrition, and no passion to want to understand the lives of others”?

[Chris Grayling]

I cannot speak for the Prime Minister, but I can say that I have been to Bristol recently and spoken with unemployed people there. I can also tell the hon. Lady that the figures she quotes are nonsense. She and her Labour colleagues keep forgetting the fact that they used to hide large numbers of unemployed people on a training allowance, which masked the true picture of long-term unemployment. I can absolutely assure her that genuine long-term unemployment in her constituency is not up by 72%.