Owen Smith, Labour’s Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, commenting on today’s Labour Market statistics from the ONS, said:

“The employment numbers are moving in the right direction.  However, these statistics alone do not tell the full story, as they come in the middle of a Tory crisis of low pay and insecure work. 

“Just last week ONS figures revealed a further boom in the use of zero hours contracts, rising by over 100,000 to 800,000 in just three months.  While workers are also struggling through a Tory decade of low pay, with wages growing at the slowest rate in a century. 

“In the teeth of this crisis for millions of working people the last thing the Government should be doing is taking away support that makes work pay.  Yet that is precisely what the Tories intend to do through cutting Universal Credit that will take £1,600 a year from over 2 million low and middle paid working families.”