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Welfare Reform Bill

I would be happy to swap notes with the hon. Lady after the debate, but some of the larger providers to which I have talked, in both the voluntary and the private sectors—the not-for-profit sector—assure me that they can deliver such a programme. We all agree that we have an excellent programme—there is consensus that the roll-out of the programme is a good thing—but what bothers us on the Opposition Benches is that we are hearing that, because of resource constraints, neither the migration of existing claimants nor the work-related activity requirements can be rolled out any faster. For perfectly good and understandable reasons, the Treasury is not prepared to invest large amounts of money up front on the Secretary of State’s promise that there will be a saving at some time in the future. I am suggesting that the private and voluntary sectors can deliver some real benefit; they can do something that no Government Department can do. They can take on the risk on their balance sheets and allow the removal of the resource constraint in order to roll out the programmes more quickly.