PM praises New Deal jobs scheme

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Prime Minister Gordon Brown praised the scheme as he met people who had found a job thanks to the programme during a visit to a job centre in north-west London.

Mr Brown said the next challenge for the Government was to help people find new skills in the coming years so they could find decent jobs.

More than 1.8 million people have found a job through the New Deal since it was launched in 1998.

Mr Brown said: "This week marks 10 years of the new deal, a time for celebration of what has been achieved but also a time for looking ahead for the next 10 years of Labour market reform."

Mr Brown said in past years the problem had been one of unemployment but he predicted that in the next decades the issue to be tackled was one of employability.

"If in the old days lack of jobs demanded priority action, in the new world it is lack of skills, and that means our whole approach to welfare must move on."

Work and Pensions Secretary Peter Hain, who accompanied Mr Brown on Wednesday's visit, said: "When the new deal was introduced a decade ago, the idea that we could seriously target an 80% employment rate would have been laughable.

"Yet a decade on we have slashed claimant unemployment almost in half and we are spending £5 billion less on unemployment now than we were in 1997 - that is money we are spending on schools and hospitals."

Mr Hain said reforms planned by the Government would see hundreds of thousands more benefit claimants becoming active job seekers rather than passive recipients.