Welfare Reform Bill

No, my hon. Friend will have to wait. He spoke for 40 minutes; will he let me have a go for five minutes? When something works, why not extend the opportunity to take part in it to others? There is an issue about compulsion, but let us deal with the matter in general—let us not deal with lone parents. If somebody has been on benefit for two years and has had every type of assistance going, if they have been through the ordinary new deal and the flexible new deal, if they have had intensive programmes and a skills audit and if they still do not have a job, that suggests that something is missing. I recommend to my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and anyone else in the House the research conducted by Reed in Partnership. It analysed every person who had been through its employment zone and found that 16 per cent. of participants did not have a job, training or anything at the end of it. Why? They did not want to work. They were quite open and blunt about it. They just wanted a life on benefits. They did not want to go to work. Reed arranged interviews and half of them were offered jobs, which they turned down. There must come a point where the state says, "If you are not going to play ball at all, the sanction will come in."