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Welfare Reform

I start by welcoming the statement. As the Secretary of State knows, a year ago, the Centre for Social Justice published a series of reforms, many of which went alongside Freud, but some went slightly further. What the Secretary of State is saying is along those lines, so I welcome what he says. As he knows, the Centre for Social Justice and I have worked with the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) on early-years intervention, and on the idea that empathy and bonding between the age of one and two is vital. I suspect that that idea, which I recommend, is reflected by his rejection of any talk of forcing people into work at that stage of a child's life. I would, however, like to raise one issue. The Secretary of State talked about a lot of ways of getting lone parents back into work, and we know how difficult that is. When he refers to 32 hours work a week actually paying he is right, but one of the biggest problems is that many of the lone parents that we saw who worked between 16 and 32 hours complained hugely about the massive withdrawal rates that they suffered. I know that the issue is a difficult one, but the benefit block means that some of them only take back 10p in the pound for each of the hours that they work. That is a major issue and a disincentive for many of them. Losing housing benefit after falling out of employment and then finding it can take months to get it back is a major disincentive. Will he consider those matters in the next few months and bring some suggestions forward?