Stephen Pollard

culture, it will save £ 7billion a year. Add to that the £ 26,000 a year cap on benefits and this Government can make a genuine claim to having started a serious welfare reform programme.

But it’s that phrase “dependency culture” that mustn’t be overlooked. Dealing with it is critical to any serious reform.

The community work programme outlined yesterday by the Prime Minister will require claimants aged between 18- 21 to do 30 hours com munity work each week as well as a minimum of 10 hours jobhunting to qualify for their benefit. Already it has been attacked as punishing the worse- off. The Lib Dems said: “These placements are not designed to help someone into work, more to punish. Just like the Tory plans to axe housing benefit for young people it’s all stick and no carrot.”

What a fatuous piece of nonsense, which misses the point completely. It speaks volumes about the Lib Dem mindset that they see making a contribution to society in return for the support of society as a punishment.

It says it all that the party appears never to have heard of welfare dependency. One reason why it is so important

THIS all matters because the latest figures, from December, show there are 30,000 people aged 18- 24 who have been on jobseeker’s allowance for more than a year. That’s too many.

Labour under Ed Miliband initially attacked the benefit cap, which meant it supported the idea that benefit claimants could take home more than the average wage.

But under Rachel Reeves, who took over the welfare portfolio 18 months ago, it has begun to sound more sensible. Last week she said that after two years on the dole the unemployed should be forced to take a job to stop them spending a “lifetime on benefits”.

As of December more than 133,200 people aged 25 and over have been claiming jobseeker’s allowance for two years or more. Labour’s policy is to provide them with a “properly paid” six- month job funded by a £ 1.9billion tax on bankers’ bonuses. Anyone who refuses to work will lose their benefit. The sentiment is welcome and shows that there are some positive signs.

As one has come to expect with Labour, however, the sums don’t add up. They say that 80 per cent of those who start such a job would be kept on even though there is no worthwhile evidence to support this. And the Tories say it would cost far more than the £ 1.9billion Labour claims.

Whatever the respective merits of their policies it’s good that both main parties appear to have realised that the dependency culture is the poison at the heart of the welfare system – if we are going to take them at their word.

‘ Tackling dependency

culture is crucial’