A drop in Bradford’s unemployment count in triggered a clash between city MPs yesterday.

Official figures showed the number of people on the dole in the city stood at 18,292 last month, down 731 on the 19,259 people claiming benefits at the end of August.

The picture was also encouraging in Kirklees which recorded a similar fall in the number of jobless, from 12,121 to 11,290 – a decline of 831.

And, in Calderdale, the number of people claiming unemployment benefits also dipped, by 280, from 5,914 to 5,634.

Across the UK, the number of people claiming jobseeker’s allowance fell by 41,700 last month to 1.35m, the latest piece of good economic news for the Coalition.

And the overall unemployment rate – including people not claiming the dole – remained at 7.7 per cent, after falling by 18,000 over three months, to 2.49m.

David Ward, Liberal Democrat MP for Bradford East, said unemployment in his constituency now stood at its lowest level for nearly two years.

And he said: “It’s encouraging. It shows that the economy is improving and that more jobs are being created in Bradford.

“However, while it’s great that unemployment is falling, we still have the eighth highest unemployment rate in the country and we cannot relax our efforts.

“We need to make sure Bradfordians benefit from new opportunities like the Westfield development, which is being assisted through £35m from the City Centre Growth Zone initiative.”

But George Galloway, Respect MP for Bradford West, said unemployment remained “sky-high and virtually unchanged” in his constituency, over the past year.

He said: “The Government keeps telling us we're on the road to recovery but, if we are, the destination remains out of sight.

“Bradford West has almost double the national unemployment rate – at 11.9 per cent against 7.7 per cent – and year-on-year the numbers have dropped by only 162.

"The answer is, of course, investment in building works, the infrastructure, capital projects, but that simply isn't going to happen under this Government.”

Across the country, the number of people in work hit a fresh record high of 29.8m people, the statistics showed.