David Cameron met long-term unemployed people in Tameside - and said genuine claimants had nothing to fear from an "uncompromising" government crackdown on benefits cheats.
The Prime Minister visited St Peter's Partnerships in Ashton-under-Lyne, a scheme which helps the jobless back to work and chatted with 33-year-old Nathan Taylor, from Stalybridge, who has been unemployed for ten years.
Afterwards Mr Cameron said; "This is a really great social enterprise that helps to get people off welfare and into work. I spoke to a man who'd been unemployed for 10 years.
"Can you imagine how much that does to his confidence and self-esteem? St Peter's Partnerships is part of the big society that we want to build in this country."
Nathan Taylor, 33, from Stalybridge said he'd been out of work while he helped bring up his ex-partner's child. Before that he'd done factory work. He's been with Greenspace for 12 months. "I love it," he said. "It's great to be working outside doing physical work."
Cameron: Time to get tough on benefits cheats
Opinion: David Ottewell - crackdown on benefits cheats may be harder than it seems
He admitted he did not vote at the election but said of Mr Cameron: "He seems a very nice person. He comes across different to what he is on TV."
Bob Wheeler, deputy chief executive of the St Peter's Partnerships, said: "It went very well, he asked lots of interesting questions and spoke with staff."
Peter Hawley, marketing manager for the Partnerships, added that the PM took on criticisms from many on the Partnership's schemes that the welfare system was too complicated.
After half an hour or so the Prime Minister left for other engagements in Manchester.
Mr Cameron is planning to invite private firms to help track down benefits cheats - but said genuine claimants should not be alarmed.
The Prime Minister said the state was entitled to call on outside help to try to reduce the £1.5 billion lost by taxpayers to benefit fraud every year.
He said the country needed to regain the sense that claiming benefits you were not entitled to was "morally wrong".
Earlier he announced an "uncompromising" crackdown on benefit cheats which will be unveiled in the autumn.
He said reducing the £5.2 billion annual 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.
Mr Cameron said: "There are some people who are claiming welfare who are not entitled to it and that is just wrong and that should stop.
"As a country as we start to make savings to get our budget deficit under control the first cut we ought to make is the welfare payments to people who are not entitled to it.
"The system pays money inappropriately to people who are not entitled to it so we have got to make the system work better as well. Both things, fraud and error, go together and I want to cut them both."
On the involvement of third-party assistance, he said: "I do not think people should be concerned.
"If you are entitled to welfare and can claim it then you should claim it but if you are not entitled to it you should not get and should not claim it.
"Private companies use all sorts of different means to make sure they are not defrauded, why should the state be any different?
"In the end it's taxpayers' money. People going out to work hard every day do not pay their taxes so that someone can basically claim it fraudulently.
"That is not right, it is not fair and I want to stop it."
He added: "In the end, government can only do so much. 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.
"We need that sense back in our national life as we grapple with this deficit and try to build a more responsible society."
Cameron: Time to get tough on benefits cheats
Opinion: David Ottewell - crackdown on benefits cheats may be harder than it seems
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GO GET' EM David There are a lot around
I think DC is right I don't think that we should have poor people here, can we not send them somewhere overseas with all the Jonny Foriegners!
DC is quite right our problems in this country come from the people at the bottom we should keeping looking down with disdain and up with adulation, as they are defrauding this great nation out of 5 billlion a year, the weak, poor, the lazy and feckless. The people at the top will save us especially the ones who are exiled overseas, they are the ones who can steer this once great nation from the brink of destruction, they are right not to pay the correct taxes why should they, when they work hard making money out of the people in Briatin. If I had my way I would line the poor all up against the wall
Well said David. For far too long the scroungers have fiddled the system dry, whilst the hard working have been struggling to make ends meat.
Dob in a scrounger earn a £ 100.....
Bring it on............
Dob in a tax cheat earn a £ 1000....
Bring that on too............
Divide and rule the mugs always fall for it
"After half an hour or so the Prime Minister left for other engagements in Manchester."
...he went to sign on and pick up his disabled car sticker, he did his London ones last week..
But the ones who are getting the big money are the ones with lots of kids who just breed for money what can you do with them ? some are on 42K a year and they are not working on the side.
33-year-old Nathan Taylor, from Stalybridge, who has been unemployed for ten years, Nathan Taylor, 33, from Stalybridge said he'd been out of work while he helped bring up his ex-partner's child.
So the taxpayer has been paying Mr Taylor to be a child minder; what for TEN YEARS and where has Mr Taylor's ex partner been during that time?
No one can really argue about this,as long as we also seek out the income tax and vat dodgers also!
No problem going after the dole/social cheats..my daughters bloke has had "depression"for years..
However ,a bit rich coming from a bloke who who's fellow M.P's have had their nose in the trough for years..and only 4 have so far been pursued!
It was previous governments that created this benefit culture so they should not be applauded for finally realising that something needs to be done about it. There job is to govern and if they governed properly from the offset we wouldn't constantly be trying to put things right and be closing the door after the horse has bolted. Let's hope this cheating culture is also wiped out in politics. Politicians who have been ripping off the tax payer for eons with expenses telling us about cheats. You couldn't make it up.
"Divide and rule the mugs always fall for it"
Amen to that, there seems to be plenty of mugs on here today toeing the party line....
What happens to the benefit cheats who deal in cash and use other people's bank accounts?
love the champagne socialists on here-lets start with the mps who for years have fiddled money and never been to court-lets start with the mps who have fough illegal wars costing billions as well as thousands of lives.oh and with cutbacks and predicted unemployment to come-where does dopey dave hope to find the jobs to get people off benefits which is what this is about? cant believe people fall for it, this is a government that wants to cut prison places as well as cutting police jobs-that really makes sense. carry on you working class tories, you voted these in, when your schools(3 in stockport closing down to start with), policeforce etc go, at least you will be able to say you contributed to it all by voting tory.i just hope that the schools that shutdown have your kids in them!
Helping to bring up a child for 10 years? Funny that my child is nearly 10 and I been at work for 9 1/2 of those years....... Any excuse. Only be back at work now because he would have had back to work interview where his money would be stopped - after 10 years nice. Yes I would like to know where the mum was during this 10 year period as well. All well and good now working but lived off tax payers for 10 years. Dont think he should be getting standing ovation.
To find out more about the great work that St. Peter's Partnerships do, go to:
www.stpeterspartnerships.org
Happy reading
Total, utter nonsense from a man with a privelaged upbringing and who has no idea whatsoever what it means to live in poverty. Fair enough, there are plenty of cheats around who shaft the benefits system and this should rightly be dealt with, however, from a government hell bent on cutting public services, selling off the NHS, cutting child tax benefit, working tax benefit et al, it smacks of nothing more than pandering to the idiotic mentality so many people in this country have. 'Yeah, get the scroungers! That'll solve all our problems!' Not. The real fraudsters here are the politicians, the bankers (especially the bankers), and the Her Majisty's Revenue & Customs who are still chasing so called tax fraudsters for millions after THEY cocked up in ther first place, paying out a load of money to people worthy of child tax credit and working tax credit who were apparently 'overpayed'. Well, sorry. If the British establishment are so incompetent at giving out benefits to those who don;t need it, they've only got themselves to blame. Cameron can come to Manchester and give everyone this 'big society' nonsense, but mark my words: we're swiftly heading back to the 80s here. Remember Thatcher? This man would happily kneel in her presence and follow her twisted doctrine. Don't be fooled by it. Those who genuinely need their benefits will also find their benefits cut while the bankers get richer, the politicians escape justice and the man in the street loses everything that makes Britain 'great'.
Dave is really stuck with the whole "social enterprise" idea, isn't he? So far, he applied it to jobs, hospitals and crime while, I'm sure, there is more to come.
Though I think for Dave social enterprise = sort-it-out-on-your-own-mate-cause-we-ain't-gonna-be-bothered...a true moderniser of Tory policy wouldn't you say?!
Government priorities are all over the place.
Benefit fraud is a problem but one that must be seen to be effectively removed without the genuine claimants being affected.
The problem as I see it is that the very staff which get the benefits wrong for a lot of people whether it be in favour of the claimant or not ,will no doubt be the same ones tightening the thumb screws.
This is going to be messy for so many ...eradicating the fraudsters is one issue but the genuine poor among us will once again suffer under the Tory party in it's quest to avoid the big issues first such as taxing the rich who live overseas and benefit from British economical legal loop holes.
My question to Cameron is which one of these two is the real benefit fraud?
Meanwhile, the owners of the Daily Torygraph, the Beverly twins live in the Carib, part of the year, to avoid paying U.K. tax, other Tory Lords have handed their Lordships back, so they can reside abroad and avoid paying taxes, but they keep their Knighthoods and U.K. citizenship thank you very much. What about these posh tax thieves then, Posh Boy?
It would help the jobless back to work if there were more jobs; as private businesses can not provide them and will not provide job training, then our government should, but Posh Dave says that is a waste of rich taxpayers money. So learn how to brush the streets you peasants. If you wanted a proper job you should have gone to Eton. It's your own fault if you are poor. What do you expect we posh folk to do about it?
This is the best idea for a long time, I work in this area and its a nightmare this is the only incentive that would work all that matters is money ! the DLA is the one to target the world and his wife are on it .
Easy target - far more difficult to actually reduce benefit fraud. Smacks of appeasing the Daily Mail classes, whilst making very little material difference aside from the inevitable casualties arising from those who ought to get these benefits being denied them.
I have no sympathy for the genuine fraudsters but innocent people will inevitable lose out and the tax payer will see very little in real return.
Isn't it interesting to note that this mornings figure of £5.2 Billion has been slashed to just £1.5 Billion? Well done Dave you've saved us all nearly £4 billion already?
But where did that extra £4 Billion of extra money come from? Well it's actually down to administrative screw ups by the Benefits Agency. Of course the money is overpaid in error to benefits claimants, but hey seeing as people are getting more money than they should lets lump them all in together as benefits cheats! never mind the fact that it's a government agency who are at fault. Thank goodness for some investigative journalism on the BBC today program turning up this attempt to smear people claiming benefit.
This goes to Camerons Pathological hatred of benefits claimants, nearly every week since the election there has been some mention about it from the Tories, even though the amounts involved are relatively quite small. Surely there are far bigger fish to fry, which would yield better savings with less distress? We all know that people shouldn't claim benefits wrongly, just as we know that people shouldn't steal - funny but we don't hear Cameron banging on about criminals - no surprise when he's cut prison places & Police funding.
Spot on for a change DC, get these benefit cheats sorted. While you are at it, why not do a review of the child benefit system to deter the idle scroungers who just pump out kids for the benefit it brings. Lets stop at two, if you can't support kids, then stop having them, it's easy enough. If you won't use contraception, then maybe no benefits will act as one.
Also Mr C.. Let's also be having a good long look at the exceedingly wealthy who use all sorts of loopholes to avoid paying tax. There are just as many cheats at the top rung of the ladder as there are at the bottom.