Government cannot do it all. As we work hard to break welfare dependency and get young people ready for the labour market, we need businesses to give them a chance and not just fall back on labour from abroad.

Government cannot do it all. As we work hard to break welfare dependency and get young people ready for the labour market, we need businesses to give them a chance and not just fall back on labour from abroad.

A good proportion of foreign nationals in jobs in the UK are in semi or low-skilled occupations.

My view is pensioners don't have the one option that people of working age have. They can't really increase their income, because they are no longer able to work.

There is nothing people can throw at me to say: Do this, do that.

That thing, 'You must stay together for the kids,' is out of fashion but is right. It's not arguing parents that children don't like, it is having one parent.

What we want to do is reform the welfare system in the way that Tony Blair talked about 13 years ago but never achieved - a system that was created for the days after the Second World War. That prize is now I think achievable.