May outlines Tory plans on poverty

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

The shadow work and pensions secretary Theresa May has outlined how the Conservatives plan to tackle the issue of poverty should they come into power after the general election.

The comments came as Conservative leader David Cameron prepared to attack Labour over their style of 'big government' which he believes has failed to make the necessary improvements to Britain's welfare state.

May, speaking on BBC Radio 4's 'Today' programme, stated: "The key thing is that we are going to look not just at the issue of income targets, which this government has been looking at, but we are going to look at the causes of poverty.

"That is looking at issues like education reform, worklessness, indebtedness, addiction and using social entrepreneurs and using communities in the work against things like addiction and helping people through."

And she added: "Behind that lies some very specific policies and just to give two, we are committing to ending the couple penalty in the tax credit system and that in itself would bring 300,000 out of poverty.

"[And there are also] our proposals to get Britain working, which we set out at conference, which will help to get not only young unemployed people back into work, but also those people currently on incapacity benefit, who are able to work, and who have been long term unemployed, back into the workplace.

"Those specific policies that will help address that issue of worklessness."

The comments come as the Conservatives look to tackle Labour's record on inequality.