Liberal Democrats pledge to simplify welfare system and end culture of dependency

9.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Thu 21st Dec 2006

Gordon Brown's "obsession" with means testing has created a culture of dependency, Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Menzies Campbell warned this week as he unveiled proposals to drastically simplify the welfare system. In a speech to the IPPR, Sir Menzies set out five new Liberal Democrat ideas to improve the benefits system:

1. Stop encouraging couples with children to split up by removing the financial penalty that low income parents incur if they choose to stay together

2. Consider raising child benefit to the same level for every child in a family

3. Reduce the age of the youngest child at which we expect lone parents to work

4. Sign up to the child poverty target and set two additional 2020 goals for (a) increasing child literacy and numeracy and (b) halving the number of people claiming incapacity benefit

5. Simplify the whole benefits system and aim to cut the number of benefits from 50 to 25 and reducing by half the number of people facing marginal tax rates of 60% or more

Sir Menzies said "Gordon Brown's strategy of mass means-testing is undermining work, saving, and families. If you work all your life, you now get a basic state pension which is over 25% lower than if you had not worked at all. I am determined to take the fight for a fairer Britain into the mainstream of British politics. With Labour wedded to dependency, and the Tories to compassionate inactivity, the Liberal Democrats are the only party that can effectively stand up for the poor and the disadvantaged."