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Welfare Reform

I am happy to do so. I confirm, as I said in my statement, that we will pay people by results. We are already doing that in the flexible new deal contracts that we are letting, and in pathways. We will take that approach further with the new funding mechanism—the awfully named AME-DEL mechanism. That will enable us to pay people out of future benefit savings. Instead of leaving people on benefits and then paying the cost, the money will be brought forward and invested. That will improve those people's lives and ensure that we save money, which can be reinvested elsewhere. In the flexible new deal, for example, we will avoid people being parked—as the right hon. Gentleman called it—and left without any help, or cream-skimmed, as he also said, by requiring everybody to do at least four weeks mandatory work. As that requirement will be expensive, it will give providers an incentive to get everyone back to work so that they do not have to spend the money. As we develop our new contracts, we will ensure that people are given the right incentives to help everyone—from those who are hardest to help to those who are closest to the labour market.