Welfare crackdown: Cameron promises to get tough on people cheating the benefits system

The Prime Minister said cheating the system was "wrong" and getting tough would deliver huge savings.

Speaking at a series of events in Greater Manchester, he added people should not be concerned about the use of private firms to root out cheats and insisted the state was entitled to call on outside help to claw back taxpayers' money lost to fraud.

The Prime Minister also plans to clamp down on errors in the system which see a further 3.7bn wrongly handed out annually.

He said reducing the cost of fraud and error would be the "first and deepest" cut in public spending and that credit rating agencies could be recruited to help identify false claims. "1.5bn is enough to pay for something like 40,000 nurses in the NHS," Mr Cameron said during a PM Direct question and answer session.

"There are some people who are claiming welfare who are not entitled to it and that is just wrong and that should stop."

Insisting nobody wanted to see "brutal cuts" as part of measures to reduce the deficit, the Prime Minister added: "We should start with things we should not be spending money on anyway, such as benefit fraud and ID cards, only then should we be asking how do we do things more efficiently. Tax evasion is as bad as benefit fraud and both need to be avoided."

But during a visit to a social enterprise earlier, Mr Cameron warned: "We also need parents bringing up their children properly, we need citizens behaving responsibly and we need people taking responsibility for themselves for a sense that it is morally wrong to claim money you are not entitled to."

The Government will announce the full details of the crackdown in the autumn.

At the PM Direct event, Mr Cameron also said the Government did not want cuts to "fall on the most vulnerable".

Asked about Sure Start centres to help young families, set up under Labour, the PM said the money spent on them needed to stretch as far as possible and go to those who need it most.

There was sometimes criticism of such centres, he said, adding: "The sharp elbowed middle class, like my wife and me, get in there and get all the services."