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Unemployment

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has seen the letter in the Library from our head of statistics on 13 February—before the press speculation, therefore—which explains precisely why, in his professional judgment, he has to wait for the figures to be validated before they are issued in a parliamentary answer. We have to follow the advice of our head statistician. I am happy to speak to the hon. Gentleman about the policy in general, however. Overall, private and voluntary sector providers have helped us to improve performance significantly. Last year, they got more people into work than the year before, despite the fact that the economy was declining. However, that is in no way to criticise Jobcentre Plus or to say that it does not have a fundamental role; rather, the truth is exactly the opposite. It has always been a false choice between public and private. The point is to have a system that, through competition, gets the best out of both and ensures that people can get the contracts that they can best deliver. With pathways to work, we also had a number of teething problems when Jobcentre Plus started working with those groups. Hon. Members might remember people who had been on incapacity benefit—often for a long time—being subject to mandatory referrals. We recognise that we need to improve performance—that is an issue for our providers, but it is also an issue for us and for Jobcentre Plus. We need to work on how we are referring people to those private providers and ensure that our systems are properly integrated. That is what we are working on, and performance is already improving. As soon as the figures are validated, we will release them through a parliamentary answer. The right hon. Lady asked me about the flexible new deal. There is no mystery about this. Jobcentre Plus has had to change its plans and get more money, to reflect the fact that unemployment is rising, and we have had to do exactly the same thing with the FND. Doing that with private providers in the middle of a contracting process has meant that we had to write to them and ask them to amend their plans, which they have done. We continue to be committed to getting this in in October, so, far from being in crisis, as the right hon. Lady's motion says, all that is happening is that we are adapting the policy to reflect the fact that the economic situation has changed since we started the contracting process. I hope she will withdraw the allegation that the system is in crisis.