Iain Duncan Smith’s speech on welfare reform – full text

The Work and Pensions Secretary was speaking to the Centre for Social Justice this morning.

Introduction

It is a pleasure to be hosted today by the Centre for Social Justice – setting out a vision for Britain’s welfare state alongside the organisation where, in a sense, it all started.

Within their critique, the CSJ set out a plan for reform for Government, and today I want to look at that.

But in 2010, we inherited an economy which had entered the worst recession in living memory, with the deficit rising, costs spiralling, and GDP shrinking. People were losing their jobs and feared for the future.

It was vital that we immediately set out a long-term economic plan to put this right and secure Britain’s future – at the heart of which was the need to cut the deficit.

The Left would frame this as a rigid dichotomy:

On one side, those opposing cuts, decrying all savings as an assault on the poor and vulnerable.