If he will make a statement on progress in reducing the number of people on inactive benefits.

There are more people in work than ever before in the UK. There are also 900,000 fewer people on out-of-work benefits compared with a decade ago. There is a real contrast with the decade before that, in which the number of people on incapacity benefit trebled.

May I ask my hon. Friend to look at the position of people with mental health problems, particularly given the scheme that operates in Hull through the local branch of Mind? It is called Mindful Employer, and it offers support and encouragement to local employers to employ people with mental health problems, so will he look at whether it can be rolled out across the country to support employers?

I know how carefully my hon. Friend looks at all those issues, and she has spoken to me before about the Mindful Employer experience in her Constituency. She is absolutely right, and there are some extremely enlightened attitudes among employers small and large across the United Kingdom who are doing an awful lot to support people with a mental illness as well as people with a learning disability, who have traditionally been excluded from the labour market. I am happy to listen further to my hon. Friend's experiences to see what more we can do to embed those reforms so that they genuinely support those with a fluctuating mental health condition.

The Minister will be aware that there is a record number of 16 to 18-year-olds among the number of people not in education, employment or training. Does he accept that the path through university to work is very much embedded in young people's minds but that the Government need to do more to encourage them to go on and secure vocational training, which does not necessarily involve university but will give them a job for life?

I am not sure that there is a job for life for many people in today's labour market in a world of globalisation. Nevertheless, there is a significant task ahead concerning the skills and aspirations of many young people. Of course there has been progress in recent years on the number of young people not in employment, education or training, but we have to go further. One way of doing so is perhaps raising the school leaving age; another is continuing to make a success of the new deal, which has transformed the lives of hundreds of thousands of young people and is a policy that was, and still is, opposed by the Opposition.

Does my hon. Friend agree that getting people who have been on an inactive benefit for many years into work is one of the most challenging jobs for us? Will he give me an assurance that Jobcentre Plus has sufficient resources to meet that challenge?

My hon. Friend is right, and that is why 250 people have come off an inactive benefit, with the chance to go into work in many cases, every day over the past 10 years. My hon. Friend is right to allude to the remarkable work done by Jobcentre Plus in supporting people to get into work in many communities and towns across the country. But clearly, Jobcentre Plus cannot, and should not, be asked to do that job on its own. Increased involvement by the private and voluntary sector, community organisations, and—as I have alluded to—faith groups and trade unions in communities is also important in supporting more people into sustained employment.

The latest edition of "Labour Market Statistics", published on 18 April, showed that the number of economically inactive people of working age rose by 76,000 in the past quarter to 7.93 million. Is the Chancellor to blame?

The figures released will also show, of course, that the number of people on jobseeker's allowance fell last month—the seventh fall over the past eight months—that the number of people on incapacity benefit is the lowest that it has been for six years, and that the number of lone parents on income support has decreased. Alongside the fall in the number of people claiming each and every one of those benefits, a record number of people are in work—a record of which the Government are rightly proud.