Clegg defends radical benefits cuts

Welfare should not 'compensate poor' but encourage mobility, says deputy prime minister as Liberal Democrat activists prepare for clashes at party conference

• Press Association
• guardian.co.uk, Thursday 16 September 2010 07.44 BST
• Article history

 

Liberal Democrat backbenchers accuse Nick Clegg of targeting the vulnerable and breaking promises on 'fairness' Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

 

Nick Clegg today issued a staunch defence of radical benefit cuts as he geared up for potential clashes with Liberal Democrat activists at the party's annual conference.

The deputy prime minister said welfare should not be there "to compensate the poor for their predicament" but act as "an engine of mobility".

Billions of pounds are to be slashed from the welfare budget by the chancellor, George Osborne, when he unveils the results of his drastic public spending review next month.
Liberal Democrat backbenchers have publicly accused the coalition government of targeting the vulnerable and Clegg of breaking promises to ensure all cuts were "fair".

The issue could prove a flashpoint with the left of the party when activists gather in Liverpool from Saturday for the first time since joining the Tories in government.
But Clegg made clear he considered the reforms to be essential.

"A fair society is not one in which money is simply transferred by the central state from one group to another," he wrote in an article for the Times (paywall).

"Welfare needs to become an engine of mobility, changing people's lives for the better, rather than a giant cheque written by the state to compensate the poor for their predicament.
"Instead of turning the system from a 'safety net' into a 'trampoline', as Labour promised, people have been stuck on benefits, year in, year out."

A fair society, he wrote, was "one in which people are able to make a better life for themselves, with support from government and the broader community".

Clegg's intervention came hours after the work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, denied that he had signed up to another £4bn of spending cuts to the welfare budget.

Liberal Democrat MP Bob Russell forced the chancellor to face a Commons grilling on the issue earlier this week after Osborne revealed the figure in a media interview.
Around £11bn was taken from benefits in June's emergency budget.

Duncan Smith acknowledged that he would have to find savings in the government's forthcoming spending review but said he was still in negotiations with the Treasury.

The chancellor was demanding proof that his planned reforms to the welfare system – to make it easier to get claimants back into jobs – would work, he told a Commons committee.

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