Rt Hon Alistair Darling MP
GORGIE DALRY GAZETTE 271 August 2007
Firstly, I want to thank the many people who sent cards and emails congratulating me on my new job as Chancellor. I very much appreciate the kind words and I’m grateful to them for taking the time to write.
As Prime Minister, Gordon Brown offers a new government with new priorities. From talking to people throughout the country we know that some of the challenges faced now compared to ten years ago are very different, unprecedented and pressing - the momentous challenges of terrorism and security which were brought closer to home when we witnessed the attack on Glasgow Airport and the threat to our planet from climate change. In his speech to the United Nations recently, the Prime Minister spoke about the need for all countries across the world to come together to forge a new global alliance for peace and prosperity. And at home, our starting point will always be the concerns and aspirations of hard working families.
And so the latest employment figures are very welcome. They show a record number of people in work, a rise in employment to its highest ever level and a fall in unemployment. We have the highest employment rate across the developed world including United States, Japan, Germany, France and Italy.
In the ten years since May 1997, the new figures show that employment has risen by 2.6 million, unemployment has fallen by 373,000 and claims for job seekers allowance and out of work benefits have fallen also. This is good news and we are proud of our record on helping people back to work over the last ten years but we want to do more. Our welfare reforms, measures like the New Deal and the introduction of tax credits, combined with a strong economy, make work pay and are helping more people to come off benefits - but we are determined to go further still and lift more people out of poverty.
We are building on our progress and recently announced new reforms to help people off benefits into work. There are proposals to reduce child poverty by moving more parents into work and a new “jobs pledge”, which aims to find jobs for 250,000 people currently on benefit. As well as working with employers to open up more job opportunities to long-term benefit claimants, we need to do all we can to ensure individuals have the support and skills they need, not only so they can look for work but so they can sustain and progress in work.
In Britain today there is still too much potential untapped, too much talent wasted, too much ability unrealised. We need to ensure we use all of the skills of all of the people.
