IDS should be given universal credit

LET’S salute the hero behind this week’s job figures, in which the number of people employed in Britain surged to 32.25million.

Step forward former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith, whose remarkable and courageous reforms to the welfare system have done so much to transform Britain.

His new system of a single monthly payment — Universal Credit — has brought about a momentous and historic change in Britain’s attitude to work. His revolutionary programme swept aside the shambolic mess of tax credits and working benefits inherited from Labour. Universal Credit is simpler to understand and makes it easier to move from unemployment to work.

Without doubt there have been glitches in its early implementation. But now the system is making massive strides. It has invigorated the job market and is on course to be available in every job centre by the end of the year. I am certain future political historians will view Universal Credit as the greatest achievement of David Cameron’s government, because it has obliged work-shy people to get into the job market. It has changed them financially, and morally, for the better.

It is eroding the culture of dependency by ending the squalor of long-term unemployment, courtesy of the Welfare State.