13 Mar Labour’s Sarah Jones slams Government over rise in unemployment
LABOUR’S Shadow Industry Minister Sarah Jones has criticised the Government over today’s unemployment figures and claimed that employment levels have still not returned to pre-pandemic levels.
She told GB News: “We are the only country in the G7 at the moment whose employment levels have not gone back to pre-pandemic levels. We have vast numbers of people who are off sick.
“We need quite a change of pace in terms of interventions and that’s why Labour has been really clear, whether it’s careers advice in schools, mental health support in schools, reforming our skills with extra technical excellence colleges, reforming the apprenticeship levy or supporting people with disabilities, supporting young people into the workplace.
“There really does need to be a step change. And at the heart of all of this, of course, is the 7 million people who are on NHS waiting lists. We have to tackle that because people physically can’t work if they’re getting sicker and sicker, waiting for operations.”
Asked about the Government’s announcement today on ensuring energy security, in a discussion during Breakfast with Eamonn Holmes and Isabel Webster, she said: “This is a total non-story. Everybody accepts that we will need some gas, the climate change committee that the Government refers to, it’s very clear, we will need some gas.
“What you see here is a failure of government after 14 years to look at energy security, and we saw it with the response after the war on Ukraine. We were uniquely exposed to those problems because we didn’t have storage and we hadn’t been investing enough in all renewables.
“So, what labour would do is invest in our renewables working hand in glove with the private sector to do that, setting up Great British Energy which will turbocharge the reforms we want to see. All these things will bring energy prices down and will make us more secure against the likes of Putin and other problems around the world that we might see. So of course, we’re going to need gas no one argues with that.”
She added: “What we’ve seen with this government is they haven’t allowed onshore wind. The offshore wind round has been a disaster. Their energy efficiency measures in people’s homes has been a fiasco and they’re now slowing down on nuclear.
“They need to go faster to bring people’s bills down in the small print of their press release today, they say that their changes will reduce energy bills at some uncertain time in the future by £45. Well, if that’s all they’ve got to give us after 14 years, then really, what are they doing?”
