Jeremy Hunt

If you're in Middlesbrough, by the way, on those three benefits, you get £31,000.

So you still get like 50% more.

And it's just not possible to have a modern economy with those sorts of incentives.

Now, I fully accept these are difficult reforms, particularly for a Labour government.

And we all know the trouble they've had.

But let me give you an example of the kind of reform that could transform this, which...

Patently left or right, north or south, I think most people would say makes sense.

So if you have moderate anxiety or depression at the moment, by citing this, it can up your number of points in the benefit system and then help you to qualify for not having to look for work.

Well, when I was health secretary, every psychiatrist that I met said that if you've got anxiety and depression, which are real conditions, the one thing you need is social contact.

And, you know, if you sign people off having to look for work, you're actually making them more isolated.

You're making the condition work.

For a fraction of the cost of their benefits bill, we could be giving them talking therapies by expanding the services that the NHS offer and actually get people back into work.

It's such an important problem.

And we've...

got this half right and half wrong.

And I think the half right... By the way, I'm a big supporter of Michael Gove's school reforms, but actually it wasn't just Michael Gove.

The reforms we've had over the last 30 years, going back actually to Ken Clarke and David Blunkett,

have introduced rigour into English state schools that have made them some of the best in the world.

Our reading standards are the highest in Western Europe.

Our maths standards have been catching up with South Korea.