Theresa Villiers has written the following article on the Government's welfare reform programme which will be published in the local Barnet papers.
Fixing our welfare system is a key aim for this country’s Conservative – led government. At the heart of our reforms is the principle that work should always pay.
The system we inherited from the last Labour Government was not only unaffordable, but it also trapped people in poverty. Too many people were better off out of work and on benefits and this created a something-for-nothing culture of entitlement and welfare dependency.
Labour have opposed every single measure we’ve taken to fix the welfare system so work pays, not a life on benefits. Unbelievably, they have even opposed, and voted against, our benefit cap which ensures that no out-of-work household can claim more than the average working family earns.
The Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls has said that under Labour’s plan some out-of-work households should be able to claim more than £26,000 a year in benefits. You would have to earn £35,000 a year before tax to get that much by working. It is clear that Labour are not on the side of hardworking people – they are the welfare party.
Labour left us with a system which also allowed people to claim up to £104,000 in housing benefit. The Conservatives are on the side of people who want to work hard and get on in life. We do not think it is fair that hard working taxpayers on modest incomes should have to pay for people to live in homes which most people could never afford. That is why a cap on housing benefit payments is another of our reforms.
While we believe these reforms will help prevent the welfare budget from mushrooming out of control, these reforms are not just about the affordability for the taxpayer. We are also shifting to a system which is simpler to understand, more efficient to run and which always provides an incentive to work.
In addition, we are helping people once they get into work by increasing income tax thresholds. These changes have seen 24 million people receive a tax cut of over £600 and workers on the minimum wage have had their income tax bills halved.