PM vows to get people back to work

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The total number of people out of work, including those not eligible for benefit, jumped by 165,000 in the quarter to January to 2.03 million, the worst figure since Labour came to power in the summer of 1997.

The Prime Minister said: "Any person who loses their job or fears losing their job - this is a matter of personal regret for me and for the whole Government."

He told the Commons at Prime Minister's Questions: "I don't regard unemployment as a statistic. I regard it as one person, a second person, a third person, who needs our help.

"And that's why we will do everything we can to help people get back to work, that's why we've announced more apprentices, that's why we've announced more help with training and that's why we've announced that from April there will be help for people who have been unemployed for six months.

"That's why we've put £1.3 billion into the JobCentre, money that is necessary so that we can help hundreds of thousands of people in the next few months get back into work."

Tory leader David Cameron said the unemployment figures proved that it had been "simply nonsense" for the premier to claim Britain was one of the best-placed countries to withstand the recession.

But Mr Brown claimed unemployment was worse in most other major economies.

"I came into politics and I stood for Parliament first because I wanted to tackle unemployment and poverty, and that is why we are announcing the most comprehensive programme to help the unemployed," he said.

"But I have to tell him unemployment is higher in France, in Germany, in Japan, in America. It's higher in most of the other countries we are dealing with. But we are taking urgent action to help the unemployed."