Member

It would be a very strange set of government measures that spent £142 billion over five years without it having some impact on employment, but that is not a correct way of looking at the impact of this measure on employment, which, as many noble Lords have said, will be negative in the private sector. So, in effect, what we are seeing in this Budget is a reduction of jobs in the private sector in order to fund a significant increase in jobs in the public sector.