David Cameron: Welfare cuts will stop the "merry-go-round" of benefits dependency

The Prime Minister will justify a further £12billion of benefit cuts by warning that Britain must “end the complacency” that has “infected our national life”.

David Cameron will today justify £12billion of cuts to the welfare budget by warning that Britain must “end the complacency” that has “infected our national life” and stop the “merry-go-round” of benefits dependency.

The Prime Minister will use a speech to say that the Conservatives will encourage hundreds of thousands of people into work by transforming Britain “from a low wage, high tax, high welfare society to a higher wage, lower tax, lower welfare society”.

It comes after George Osborne, the Chancellor, and Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary pledged to press ahead with huge cuts to the welfare budget promised before the general election.

In a joint-article, the two Cabinet ministers said it will take ten years of cuts to the welfare state to “return the system to sanity”.

Mr Duncan Smith is understood to have been resisting the full £12billion of cuts to the benefits budget, but was overruled by the Chancellor.

In his speech today, Mr Cameron will say that the Government’s welfare reforms as well as proposals to improve schools and give working parents more free childcare will “extend opportunity in Britain”.

“When it comes to extending opportunity – there is a right track and a wrong track,” he will say.

“The right track is to recognise the causes of stalled social mobility and a lack of economic opportunity. Family breakdown. Debt. Addiction. Poor schools. Lack of skills. Unemployment. People capable of work, written off to a lifetime on benefits.

“Recognise those causes, and the solutions follow. Strong families that give children the best start in life. A great education system that helps everyone get on. A welfare system that encourages work – well paid work.”

The Prime Minister will add: ““Take for example the complacency in how we approach the crucial issue of low pay. There is what I would call a merry-go-round. People working on the minimum wage having that money taxed by the government and then the government giving them that money back – and more - in welfare.

“Again, it’s dealing with the symptoms of the problem - topping up low pay rather than extending the drivers of opportunity – helping to create well paid jobs in the first place.”

Mr Cameron will say that it is no longer acceptable to “put up with second best”.

“I am proud that in the past five years, we have begun to turn the tide on the failed approach,” he will say. “We’ve put strengthening families, reforming education and transforming welfare at the heart of what we have been doing. But in the next five years we have to go so much further – and that begins by recognising something really fundamental.

“So many of our country’s efforts to extend opportunity have been undermined by a tolerance of government failure. The failure to look after children in care. The tolerance of sink schools that have failed one generation after another. An acceptance of long-term unemployment among hard-to-reach individuals.

“We have to end the complacency that has sometimes infected our national life, that says some problems are too big, and we can put up with second best.”

The Chancellor will set out how the benefits cuts will be made in next month’s Budget.

The Government has already set out plans to reduce the benefits cap from £26,000 to £23,000.

It is expected that further savings could be made by banning under-25s from claiming housing benefit as well as restricting child tax credits to a couple’s first two children.