Member

Nothing short of fundamental reform is needed to turn the page on the last 14 years, the legacy of which has left the UK as the only G7 country whose employment rate has not returned to pre-pandemic levels and with a near-record 2.8 million people out of work due to long-term sickness, and almost 1 million young people not in education, employment or training and millions more stuck in low-paid insecure work. All those problems are far worse in the Midlands and the north, parts of the country that were deindustrialised in the 1980s and 1990s—the very same places that have lower life expectancy and chronic poor health that the Conservative Party repeatedly promised to level up but repeatedly failed to deliver on.