Someone in the UK Cabinet room must have been googling “Welfare Reform Ideas” and up popped a few Paula Bennett press releases.
Jobless parents who insist on having more children may face losing benefits.
Writing in the Daily Mail Chancellor George Osborne and Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith unveil the radical proposal as part of their plans to slash the welfare budget.
After months of wrangling, the pair have agreed to find £10billion in savings, to follow the £18billion already cut from handouts.
Their most controversial suggestion is that unemployed parents could be deprived of extra support if they have another child. Treasury sources said child benefit, income support or tax credits could be withheld, putting the jobless in the same position as struggling working parents who simply cannot afford to have larger families.
No figure is put on the maximum number of children that a jobless family could have before state support ended.
Cameron’s Government could do with a few dry policies; thanks to their timid surrender to their soaking wet coalition partners the Liberal Democrats they have been pretty poor successors to the mantle of Maggie Thatcher.
