Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith will today call for more welfare changes
Jobless couples with more than two children should have benefit payments
limited, Iain Duncan Smith suggested yesterday (Oct. 24). The Work and Pensions
Secretary said there were ‘large numbers’ of couples on welfare having big
families – unlike middle-income parents who had to weigh up if they could
afford to have another child. Mr Duncan Smith condemned the ‘madness’ of the
state subsidising large workless families – saying it would be fairer to the
‘vast majority’ of responsible taxpayers if benefits were limited to the first
two children in future.
He has agreed to find another £10billion in welfare savings by 2016,
having already slashed £18billion from a vast budget that grew by 60 per cent
under Labour. As well as cuts to child benefit and tax credits for large
workless families, he suggested housing benefit could be stripped for those who
expected to go straight from school on to welfare and a state-subsidised house.
Liberal Democrat sources, however, warned nothing had been agreed and
suggested the proposals were ‘just Tory kite-flying’. A senior Lib Dem source
said: ‘It doesn’t even save very much money as we’ve already introduced a
benefits cap.’ But Mr Duncan Smith said more reforms were vital as the
Government sought to control public finances.
He dismissed suggestions the Coalition was ‘hurting’ claimants –
insisting the real cruelty was leaving people languishing on welfare for years.
‘We have accepted for far too long in this country that it is possible for
people to just stay on benefits,’ he said. ‘It is all about saying, we will
give you massive support to find work... But also, we have an expectation, as
the taxpayer pays for these bills, that you try your hardest to find work.’
Most controversially, Mr Duncan Smith suggested the present system
encouraged poorer families to have large numbers of children without worrying
about the cost. 'An end to never-ending benefits': The Government plans to
restrict housing benefit to the under-25s. ‘When you look at families across
the board, at all incomes, you find the vast, vast majority make decisions
about the kind of numbers of children they have, the families they want, based
on what they think they can afford,’ he said. ‘Where you see the clustering of
the large families is really down at the very lowest incomes, those on
significant levels of welfare, and those on the very top incomes.
'An end to never-ending benefits': The Government plans to restrict housing benefit to the under-25s
In other words, the problem for those who are paying the taxes, paying
the bills – they make the decisions about their lives, even if they sometimes
would like to maybe have extra children, they make decisions. ‘People who are
having support through welfare are often free from that decision. We want to
support people if they have children when they are out of work, of course. ‘But
can there not be a limit to the fact that really you need to remember you need
to cut your cloth in accordance with what capabilities and what finances you
have?’
In his speech to the Cambridge Public Policy think-tank, he suggested
only welfare claimants having children in future would be affected, not
existing families. Alison Garnham, of the Child Poverty Action Group, said:
‘When parents plan their families they’re not thinking about whether at some
point in future they might be on benefit.’ Liam Byrne, Labour’s work and
pensions spokesman, said: ‘The truth is it’s working people who are seeing
their help axed.’
Daily Mail UK
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