Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 10:30 am on 23 June 2005.
Recent employment figures demonstrate that, yet again, the Government have created economic circumstances in which a record number of people are in work in the UK. Obviously, it is important that we continue that progress and my hon. Friend makes a good point about the importance of skills. People who are without work now tend to be without work simply because they lack appropriate skills, so it is certainly important that we hold the kind of cross-cutting debates that he described and I anticipate that the subject he mentioned will be a good one.