It’s time to get Britain working

AT Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday, David Cameron chose to describe the latest unemployment figures as “disappointing”.

Here in Yorkshire, the term “disastrous” would perhaps be more apt.

More people are now out of work in this region than at any time in the past 20 years, the rise in the number of jobless people having far out-stripped every other part of the country.

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This newspaper has repeatedly warned Ministers they must do far more to support the regions as they take the painful but necessary measures to cut Britain’s gaping deficit.

We have outlined dozens of ways to help spark private sector growth in Yorkshire.

Now we are starting to see the devastating implications of their inertia. More than a quarter of a million people unemployed across Yorkshire. One in five young people out of work.

Yet still the Prime Minister sits on his hands.

Still he refers proudly to rock-bottom interest rates – indeed a relief for many with mortgages to pay. But not so for those with savings in the bank. And certainly not for those with no income at all.

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The Regional Growth Fund is an excellent initiative, of course, but urgently needs bolstering with extra money if it is to give firms the support they need to grow.

The Chancellor, George Osborne, should see this more clearly than anyone, having staked his all on the hope private firms will step in to create jobs as his axe cleaves through great swathes of the public sector.

This remains an admirable aim – but there is precious little sign of success thus far.

Growth is so sluggish as to be practically non-existent. And with uncertainty mounting over the stricken Eurozone, the prospects for improvement look bleak.

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The reality is that Mr Osborne remains the man without a plan - a plan for growth, at any rate. His own backbench Treasury Committee chair, Andrew Tyrie, admitted as much last month, before being hurriedly silenced by the Downing Street minions.

“No Plan B” has become an increasingly desperate mantra for this Government – indeed it has staked its very credibility on a refusal to change course. Ministers now see nowhere else to turn. But ‘Plan A’ will only work if the growth is there.

There is much more the Chancellor could do. If he does not act soon, his party risks repeating its worst mistakes of years gone by.