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Welfare Reform

I certainly acknowledge my hon. Friend’s first point: the Select Committee recently produced an excellent report on how we might make progress on reaching our aspiration of an 80 per cent. employment target. We will respond fully to that report in due course. With regard to the three-year proposal, we will have to study the Freud report carefully. Were the arrangement to work, however, it would allow us to make real progress in achieving one very important thing: ensuring that we do not just succeed in finding a job for someone but that we focus in future on helping them to stay in the job. In that regard, the difference is between a job and a career. Increasingly, Jobcentre Plus must focus on that. A three-year period would be challenging, and we will have to study the proposal carefully. I agree that there are specific problems in London in relation to making work pay for people on benefits, especially for those in the social rented sector with large families. That issue is being considered separately by the Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform, as part of our refreshed child poverty strategy. We hope to make announcements on that shortly.