The British economy is on the move with a new set of figures confirming that we had the fastest growing advanced economy in 2014 and that we are set to grow even faster this year.

Low interest rates, falling petrol prices, cuts in household energy costs (not frozen at historically high levels as some called for a few months ago) coupled with this government’s tax reductions for 24 million people, are helping to stretch family budgets that bit further. But is this growth sustainable? Is this a sign of Britain on the march? Or Britain on the rebound from the deepest recession in peacetime history?

A clue lies in the employment figures released this week which showed that we are now the jobs factory of Europe, creating more jobs here than the rest of Europe put together since 2010 and now with a record number of people in work.

Without jobs, prosperity can’t follow. Do you hear from other political parties that these are the “wrong sort of jobs”, that they are low quality, minimum wage or part-time? The only thing wrong about the data is the wilful misrepresentation of it by lazy politicians – employment is up across the UK, with 60 per cent of the rise outside London and the South East; three quarters of the rise has been in full-time jobs and two-thirds of it in higher-skilled occupations.

As a result, unemployment levels nationally are below 900,000, the lowest level since 2008, and in our constituency unemployment continues to tumble, down almost 60 per cent overall since the election – and daily I hear of the skills shortages that local businesses are facing.

But to keep Britain’s extraordinary private sector-led recovery going, the country needs several things to happen and it is worth keeping an eye on the various manifestos of political parties to see what they say what they will do to make this happen. Here is what I will be saying and what the Prime Minister committed to in his Full Employment speech this week:

* to grow the Government must encourage enterprise and back small business;

* to keep jobs taxes low and cut red tape;

* invest in infrastructure to attract business and good jobs across the UK;

* to get people back to work by controlling immigration and changing the welfare system to reward work.

That’s the long-term economic plan that will deliver long-term prosperity and security.