Life on benefits is not an option says Iain Duncan Smith

THE benefit system received a major overhaul today as Iain Duncan Smith announced that a life on benefits would no longer be an option for the unemployed.

David Cameron and Iain Duncan Smith announce new welfare bill David Cameron and Iain Duncan Smith announce new welfare bill

The Works and Pensions Secretary said that job vacancies would no longer be filled by foreign workers while “millions” of Britons stay on benefits.

He claimed that the radical welfare reforms, including the creation of the new Universal Credit, would provide financial incentives to get people back into work.

Mr Duncan Smith alongside Prime Minister David Cameron launched the Welfare Reform Bill at an event in London today.

Prime Minister David Cameron makes a speech on welfare

He added: "What will happen is British people will genuinely be able to get British jobs because they will be incentivised to take those jobs, we will expect them to take those jobs but work will pay better than benefits.

Life on benefits is not an option

Iain Duncan Smith

"A life on benefits will no longer be an option for somebody.

"After all, right now there are huge numbers of people sitting on benefits, sometimes in rented accommodation, that people who are working could never dream of affording.

"That system has got to change. Fairness to the taxpayer as well.”

The Welfare Reform Bill will replace the complex array of benefits with a single Universal Credit, create a Work Programme to help the long-term unemployed into jobs and introduce incentives and sanctions to ensure that work always pays, said the Prime Minister.

But the Government has ditched controversial proposals announced in last year’s emergency budget to cut housing benefit by 10 per cent for anyone on jobseeker’s allowance for more than 12 months.

Mr Cameron said the changes announced today would slash £5.5 billion from the welfare bill in real terms over the next four years by limiting housing benefit, reforming tax credits and taking child benefit away from higher-rate taxpayers.

But he insisted that the Bill was “not an exercise in accounting - it’s about changing our culture”.

Speaking in east London alongside the architect of the reforms, Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith, the Prime Minister said: “Never again will work be the wrong financial choice. Never again will we waste opportunity.

Protestors outside where Prime Minister David Cameron made a speech on welfare reform

“We’re finally going to make work pay - especially for the poorest people in society.

“And we’re going to provide much greater support for unemployed people to find work - and stay in work.

“We’re not just recasting the reach, scope and effectiveness of the old system - making it fairer and a genuine ladder of opportunity for everyone. We’re also doing something no government has done before - and that is get to grips with the cost of welfare.”

But the reform package came under attack from unions, who accused the coalition Government of punishing the unemployed and impoverished for their own misfortunes.

“Long-term unemployment has doubled not because of a sudden increase in work-shy scroungers, but as an inevitable result of economic policies based on cuts that destroy growth,” said TUC general secretary Brendan Barber.

“Making low-income working families thousands of pounds worse off through welfare cuts over the next two years to claim that they will be slightly better off in 2013 is an absurd argument that will ring hollow as families suffer the toughest income squeeze for nearly a century.”

Richard Hawkes, chief executive of Scope, said: “Many disabled people can work and want to work, but the Government is in danger of missing out on their contribution because the welfare system it is proposing isn’t sophisticated enough to realise disabled people’s potential.

“The new assessment is a blunt tool that will find many disabled people fit for work, but in the real world, faced with intense competition for few jobs, negative attitudes from employers and very limited access to specialist help, they will struggle to find employment.

“We are asking Iain Duncan Smith and the Government to reconsider their approach and work with us to design a system of support that will really succeed in helping disabled people move off benefits and into stable employment.”

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