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Get a job, Iain Duncan Smith tells parents on the dole
Families will be told that they should work at least 35 hours a week, rather than rely on state handouts, if they want to avoid their children living in poverty.Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, will say that Labour's strategy to spend more than £150 billion in extra benefit payments for poor families had failed to stop child poverty. Figures to be published today are expected to show that the Government failed to meet its statutory target to halve the problem by 2010 - despite the huge amount of taxpayers' money spent on tackling it. Mr Duncan Smith will unveil a new analysis which will show that hundreds of thousands of children will be lifted out of poverty if at least one of their parents works 35 hours a week earning the minimum wage. The introduction of the universal credit, under the Government's welfare reforms, will mean that people returning to work from benefits will continue to receive some state support. Mr Duncan Smith will also set out plans to change the definition of child poverty so that a more sophisticated analysis is used. Any child living in a household which earns less than 60 per cent of the typical income is defined as living in poverty. This is likely to be changed so that children living in workless households or those with drug-dependent parents are highlighted. Speaking at the Abbey Community Centre in London, Mr Duncan Smith will accuse Labour of "pouring vast amounts of money" into increased benefit payments to tackle poverty. He is expected to say that the strategy has failed and parents need to be helped back to work rather than simply subsidised by the state. "For those who are able to work, work has to be seen as the best route out of poverty. For work is not just about more money -- it is transformative. It's about taking responsibility for yourself and your family." Mr Duncan Smith will indicate that Labour wasted large amounts of public funds as it failed to halve child poverty. "The last Government spoke about the need to tackle poverty, and poured vast amounts of money into the pursuit of this ambition -- £150 billion was spent on tax credits alone between 2004 and 2010. "Overall, the welfare bill increased by some 40 percent in real terms, even in a decade of rising growth and rising employment," he will say. Ministers are drawing up plans to introduce a series of measures to gauge whether families are living in poverty, such as whether parents have drug or alcohol problems or whether they are working. Mr Duncan Smith's call for disadvantaged families to return to work may come at an inopportune time with unemployment rising as the double-dip recession has led to a lack of jobs. William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, caused controversy recently by telling Britons they had to work harder to help the UK escape from recession. Posted by: lotp 2012-06-14 |
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