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Welfare Reform

May I deal first with the hon. Gentleman’s point about the nature of today’s announcement? Back in December, we asked David Freud to do a piece of work and he produced his report today. It was very much his desire to get the report out today, of course, and we wanted to reflect that. That is why we made the announcement today. There was no manoeuvring or complicated announcement. As to why I did not make a statement, the record will show that I have made a great many statements in the last few months, so there is no discourtesy, by any means, intended to the House. Far from it. We made a written statement today, and I felt—obviously wrongly—that that would be adequate. I am happy to expand on our thinking today. On the four or five specific points that the hon. Gentleman made, I should point out that David Freud has expressed his strong support for the Welfare Reform Bill and the establishment of the new employment and support allowance. If we were minded to take up the changes that he proposes in relation to conditionality for ESA, I understand that further primary legislation would not be required. On the provisions in the Welfare Reform Bill that would allow private contractors to carry out some of the benefit sanctions, we have always made it clear—my hon. Friend the Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform in particular has done so—that we intended in any event to pilot those arrangements before deciding how best to proceed. That remains our view. The hon. Gentleman asked about the capabilities of the Department for Work and Pensions. I accept that it needs to improve its ability to manage contracts if we are to deliver the new model that David Freud has proposed. We will obviously need to reflect carefully on that. On regional contracts, which are a reasonable concern for the hon. Gentleman to raise, Freud himself has recognised that there might be circumstances in which we might not need to go down the path of creating those large regional monopolies. Again, that is an issue that we need to reflect on. On the hon. Gentleman’s last point, which was probably the most important, if we are to go down the path of expecting more from lone parents in return for the additional help that we intend to make available through these proposals, Freud has made it clear that we should not do that, and that it would be wrong to do it, unless we are quite sure that we have overcome the barriers that stop lone parents working and that we will not put lone parents in the untenable and unfair position of being asked to take up work when the impact on their families would be serious and retrograde. We must match the increased obligations with the increased provision of child care. That is Government policy; that is how I think we should proceed.