Aren't you glad this will be in the hands of the very wealthy Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith who says he wants radical reform to tackle a "culture of worklessness" and help the least well-off in society. Perhaps then he should ask the poorest what is the fairest way to go about it. While we're on the subject what work are they supposed to get back into?

Proposals set to be included in a consultation paper include combining benefits and tax credits, and tailoring support to parents and the disabled. Labour has questioned whether the plans will lead to cuts elsewhere.

Mr Duncan Smith suggested last month that the government had a "once-in-a-generation" opportunity to tackle "entrenched" welfare dependency, unemployment and poverty in parts of the UK. He has said it is a scandal that there are five million people on out of work benefits and that nearly 1.5 million have been on benefits for nine out of the last 10 years. Ministers want to remove disincentives in the tax system to finding work, making sure that claimants do not find themselves worse off when starting a job than while on benefits, which they say is often the case under current arrangements.

In advance of the consultation document being published, Mr Duncan Smith told the BBC it was his aim to make people in work "better off, and their families better-off, than they would be out of work and on benefits"."The objective is to improve the quality of life for the worst off in society and get those at the bottom end back into work... and get more children out of child poverty," he said. "There is still a culture of worklessness, feeling trapped on benefits. That will change."