1. For what reasons Work programme contractors are not permitted to publish their performance data. (90837)

I thought that this afternoon we might have been extensively debating the benefits cap, but no Labour Members have been brave enough to raise the issue; I cannot think why.

The Department is following guidance issued by the national statistician in order to comply with the code of practice for official statistics and to protect the integrity and accuracy of data. However, we propose to allow providers to publish data that do not compromise the official statistics and will issue guidance to providers shortly.

As the Minister knows, under the flexible new deal, providers were allowed to publish their data if they wanted to. If he is confident in his Work programme and knows that he has got the contracting incentives right, about which there is some doubt, why on earth is he refusing to let these providers publish their data if they want to?

It is precisely because I am keen to get information out there that we are looking at ways to ensure that that can happen, despite the rules about national statistics, which we have to obey very carefully. If the hon. Gentleman wants some statistics about employment programmes, let me share a set with him. The flexible new deal, to which he referred, cost the taxpayer £770 million and delivered 50,000 six-month job outcomes. He can do the maths on that—it amounts to approximately £14,000 per six-month job outcome. That is one failure of the welfare-to-work programmes we inherited, and that is why the welfare-to-work package that we have put together through the Work programme will be better value for the taxpayer and do a better job for the unemployed.

Following that robust answer, does my right hon. Friend agree that when we are able to publish these data, they are likely to show the success of putting work out to contract when we see that organisations such as the Shaw Trust are much better at providing work for disabled people than the work done in-house by the Benefits Agency?

When I visit Work programme providers —I have now visited most of them—I certainly find a great deal of enthusiasm, a sense of purpose and successful progress. I hope that that will show through in the official statistics when the time arises. I am not in the business of burying good news, and I very much hope that we will be getting the good news about the Work programme out there as soon as we possibly can.

I welcome the U-turn on the publication of data that the Minister has just announced. The White Paper, “Open Public Services”, which was published only last summer, included the following commitment:

“Providers of public services from all sectors will need to publish information on performance”.

So why did he write into the Work programme contract a ban on the publication of performance data by those providers?

As we can all see, one of the challenges that Labour Members face at the moment is that they are all over the place on policy. On Friday, they were attacking me for allegedly misusing statistics; today they are asking why I am not going round the rules set out for us by the Office for National Statistics. They need to make up their minds about what they really stand for, because at the moment they have no idea.

The Minister has signally failed to answer the question. We know that he did not ask the UK Statistics Authority, whose rules he regularly quotes, before he imposed this absurd ban. I welcome the fact that he has finally announced a climbdown today, but he cannot blame anyone for asking him what he was trying to hide.

I have absolutely nothing to hide. I have to say to the right hon. Gentleman, as I have been saying to him for weeks, that I am not in the business of burying bad news. None the less, the statisticians expect us to make sure that we have robust and clear statistics before we publish them. As the Work programme has been going for only six months, and we have barely started to make payments for providers’ success in getting people into work, he is, I am afraid, not portraying the reality of the situation. I am glad that he is pleased that we are going to try to get the good news out there as quickly as possible, but we have to stick by the rules.

Is not the key point that statistics must be first approved by the UK Statistics Authority? Will Ministers ensure that when statistics are available, the success of the benefits cap is also published, with the approval of the UK Statistics Authority?

I will absolutely do that because, as my hon. Friend knows, we are all about trying to help people out of poverty by getting them back into work. The benefits cap is one part of a portfolio of policies—including universal credit, the Work programme and the migration of people off incapacity benefit—that will deliver the kind of change to our welfare state that we so desperately need and was so desperately lacking in 13 years under Labour.

The Minister will be aware that it is expected that the number of claimants on employment and support allowance who are routed to the Work programme will be about 150,000 lower than was expected when the contracts were let. What assessment has he made of the impact on their viability?

Overall, as the hon. Lady will have seen from the figures that we published before Christmas about expected numbers in the Work programme, we are likely to see more people in the harder-to-help groups go into the programme than was previously expected. However, she will also have seen from the previous sets of statistics on ESA that we have a larger than expected support group, which is partly because of policy changes that we have made in areas such as cancer, addiction and mental health in which we are trying to provide better long-term protection for people who are genuinely vulnerable.