Yesterday before the debate was adjourned I said that two of the greatest obstacles to overcoming the enormous problem of long-term unemployment are the lack of incentives to encourage employers to increase the number of employees and the financial disincentives to the long-term unemployed taking up work. As long as this remains the case we will not be able to reduce the number of people on the live register.
The Government must take measures to encourage employers to take on additional employees as this is crucial to tackling the problem of unemployment. There is no shortage of work but, sadly, employers have decided it is better to keep their businesses ticking over rather than take an additional employees.