What proportion of the population in (a) the UK and (b) North-West Cambridgeshire Constituency is claiming jobseeker's allowance.

In March 2009 the proportion of the population in the UK claiming jobseeker's allowance was 4 per cent.; in North-West Cambridgeshire it was 3.8 per cent.

I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. However, he will be aware that 288,000 new unemployed claimants appeared on the register in the first quarter of 2009—a rapid rise, and the fastest of any quarter. Is that what the Minister meant when he talked of light being at the end of the tunnel?

The direct reference to light at the end of a tunnel came in a rather long-winded and tortuous sentence. It started with, "These are very bad figures and I fear that they are going to get worse." In the middle came something like, "But recession is not the default mode of the British economy," as I recall, and then, "And there will be light at the end of the tunnel." Plenty in the media scrunched all that down to: "Village idiot Minister says that there is light at the end of the tunnel because the figures are so bad." The hon. Gentleman needs to go back to the original quotation, rather than relying on the selectivity of parts of the media.

Unemployment in Wellingborough, unfortunately, is more than two thirds higher now than it was under the last Conservative Government. I wondered whether that was unique, so I checked. On average, in all Conservative-held constituencies in the country, unemployment is higher now under Labour than it was under the Conservatives. Does the Minister agree that Labour still is not working?

No, and nor would I agree with the hon. Gentleman's support—I have not heard that he feels otherwise—for those Conservative Front Benchers who do not support the £5 billion package that will help in his area, as it will elsewhere. I certainly would not agree with him, given that he is, I think, a signatory to the outrageous little Bill that will seek to abolish the national minimum wage this Friday.