John Bird: You have to fare well on welfare in order to say farewell to welfare

I sent a message to Jeremy Paxman to say what a waste. Instead of talking about what the Budget meant with people involved in things now, they looked back to former times. Why?

I think because the media did not know what to do about the Budget. It's deep-seated, far-ranging effect is not simply a bit more than the usual tuppence on the price of cigs, and whisky getting it in the neck.

This Budget is alerting us to the fact that small government is on the way, and this lot are serious about it.

Harriet Harman got it in one. She said that this Budget was an ideological budget; for it was all about small government.

The last time we had small government used as a badge of honour was with Margaret Thatcher. Unfortunately for her, by the end of her time in office, the government was even bigger. And, as for the welfare bill, that had grown much

in size.

What I wanted on the Newsnight programme was an opportunity to say we may want to make the best of a bad job. We may want to use this wake-up call about less state provision as a chance to get some fundamental things right in the economy.

Let me explain it with a little Yorkshire story:

In the late 19th century in the town of Bradford, a certain family called Paxman were having a bit of a hard time. Shipped in earlier from work-starved rural Suffolk, the family were working their fingers to the bone.

And, needless to say, along with the privations of working in the "satanic mills", there was death and disease.

But a particular Arthur Paxman, starting off on the factory floor, worked his way up to become a buyer. Soon, he was a top buyer and

a relatively wealthy man.

And with this he changed the fortunes entirely of the future Paxman family; allowing one of his descendents to end up presenting Newsnight.

It was one of the most moving and surprising stories from a recent TV programme called Who do you think you are? And Jeremy Paxman wasn't the only person crying by story's end.

A good old Yorkshire story. Through grit and determination, one burns the candle at both ends for the future. And with it one self-helps one's way out of poverty.

Of course, not all of us can be an Arthur Paxman. Not everyone can be selfless and self-disciplined. Many of us are weak and need support. But even there there is a lesson.

Break your leg; get yourself a stick. Get better. Throw away the stick.

Unfortunately, many of us who have broken a leg keep the stick too long. We become dependent on the stick. And then we will never again be fully able to use the leg for it will remain weak.

What big government has done for the poorest in our society is rob from them the chances

of social mobility. The Arthur Paxman school of social improvement

has been well and truly ruled out.

But with pressure from those of us who do not want to see people on the street, we demand all in need be helped. And so it should be.

But what happens when receiving benefits and welfare becomes a life sentence for you and your children? What happens when a glass ceiling is neatly placed over you, and you are prevented from ever becoming socially mobile again?

There are many, many people on welfare who need our help, and may do so forever. But there are many people who need work and chance and opportunity; not a life sentence of never ever having to make their own way in the world.

When the Blair government was in its infancy, I presented Peter Mandelson with a slogan to remember in his days in cabinet. I wanted him to have it tattooed on his forehead. I wanted it drilled into every social engineer who wants to help the poor but often backs them into a benefit-induced dead end.

The slogan was dumb but true: "You have to fare well on welfare in order to say farewell to welfare."

In other words, as long as welfare remains a dumping ground, a place where you are looked down upon, then you will remain caught. Welfare will destroy you and destroy your chance of getting on. No Arthur Paxman school of personal advancement for you.

The big debate that needs to be going on at the moment is around how do we get people out of poverty? How do we make welfare work so

that it becomes a springboard and not a concrete safety net that, once hit, you never recover from?

This hard budget will make people at the poorest end of society cry. It will hurt them most.

But the crime is that many of them need never have been there in the first place – or should have been there for only a short period of time.

Those self-appointed wailers who feel they speak for the poor, I have little time for. Rather, let us now concentrate in our schools, in our communities, in our families,

on helping people to help

themselves.

Let us get people self-helping themselves out of poverty so that those that desperately need our aid and succour, get enough and those that need guidance out of dependency are given it.

A revolution has crept upon us unawares. It may, in the longer term, be the best thing that happened to us. And the best thing for the long-term interests of the poor.

Certainly we need to do something to help the poor out of poverty – dependency is not a just option.