Iain Duncan Smith: People are shocked by ‘Benefits Street’ and Labour will thank us for welfare reform

Channel 4 screens the second episode of its Benefits Street documentary tonight, as a petition calling for it to be taken off the air has gained over 30,000 signatures. Labour MPs are trying to use it as an example of the way the media, and by extension the Conservatives, stigmatise benefit claimants. So perhaps it was only natural that a Conservative MP would do the same and use the programme to make a political point during Work and Pensions Questions in the Commons this afternoon. Philip Davies asked Iain Duncan Smith whether he too had been struck by ‘the number of people on there who manage to combine complaining about welfare reforms whilst being able to afford to buy copious amounts of cigarettes, have lots of tattoos done and watch Sky TV on the obligatory widescreen television?’

IDS replied:

‘He’s right, many people are shocked by what they see, but the reality is that is why the public backs our welfare reform package, to get more people back to work to end these abuses, and all of these abuses date back to what the last government left, which was massive spending and trapping people in a benefit dependency.’