Bill Carmichael: No hiding place for the workshy

How could Ministers be so cruel? How can anyone be expected to get by on a measly 26,000 a year? Well, plenty can and do – and unlike the workshy who have made idleness a lifestyle choice, they graft hard for every penny they earn.

Let's put this into perspective – tax-free benefits of 26,000 a year amount to an equivalent taxable annual salary of about 36,000. Hardly a king's ransom, but not exactly on the breadline either.

Many people in work – and those struggling on old age pensions after a lifetime of employment – can only dream of earning the sort of sums routinely handed out to benefit claimants. Figures from the Office of National Statistics, for example, show that the median or mid-point of earnings in the UK is 21,320 before tax. This means half of those in work earn less than this figure.

What the Government's proposal means is that those claiming benefits should be required to live on a sum that is still substantially higher than the earnings of the vast majority of people who are in work. It doesn't sound quite so draconian now.

Poverty campaigners are always banging on about fairness. But where is the fairness of a worker earning 21,000 paying tax to support someone who pulls in the equivalent of 36,000 in handouts for doing absolutely nothing?

Of course, many benefit claimants have large families. This is partly because there is a perverse incentive under the present system – the more children you have, the more benefits you rake in.

When Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt suggested that the "state shouldn't support" large families who receive more in benefits than the average family earns, it was the cue for more faux outrage. What? Unemployed people taking responsibility for their own lives? What horror!

But these people are adults. There is nothing to stop them having more children (or deciding to limit their families using free NHS birth control), but they are simply being asked to understand that actions have consequences – and the taxpayer isn't going to come running with a blank cheque every time they decide to have another baby.

Under Labour, spending on welfare increased by about a third and now stands at 200bn a year – more than the education, transport and defence budgets combined. About 5.5 million people of working age are living on benefits and 1.4 million have been out of work for at least nine of the last 10 years. Two million children grow up in homes where no one has a job.

Beside the damage done to society by this enervating culture of dependency, the truth is we simply can't afford it anymore. Thanks to Labour's profligacy, Britain is broke.

If the Government can reform the wasteful and destructive benefits system, they will have earned our gratitude. And if benefit claimants don't like it, they can always do something really radical – like go out and find a job.

Delight for Delhi

After all the worries over security and the standard of accommodation, it is good to see the Commonwealth Games finally underway with some fantastic performances by English athletes.

The Indian organisers are just about managing to get things ready with little time to spare – judging by the pictures of workmen carrying out major repairs to the athletics track just hours before the runners took to their starting blocks.

I wish them well. The opening ceremony was spectacular and it would be great for the world's biggest democracy if India can claim the Commonwealth Games as a huge success.

And to anyone thinking of crowing over Delhi's problems, my advice is not to tempt fate. Let's see how we manage the Olympics in London in 2012, and the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014, before we dare to criticise others.