It’s important to be clear about what that means. A big part, of course, is about bringing [...]]]>

This year’s Conservative conference is unlike any since the second world war. Instead of promoting one party, we are reaffirming the historic commitment we made in May – to work together with our coalition partner in the national interest.

It’s important to be clear about what that means. A big part, of course, is about bringing sanity to our public finances. That’s why we’ve taken necessary and immediate steps to tackle Labour’s record deficit in a fair and responsible way – ensuring that taxpayers’ money is spent responsibly and getting the public finances back on track.

But fixing the structural deficit is only the beginning. Governing in the national interest means achieving a horizon shift from short term to long term. It means running a government, not a magazine – where we seek to be judged by what we achieve for future generations, not by how many press releases we issue.

It means structural reform – of the NHS, so that our hospitals can care for our grandchildren as well as our grandparents; of schools, so that coming generations are the best-educated ever; of our political system, so that in coming generations communities have the power to shape their own ways of life; of our energy and planning systems, so that we are good stewards, handing to our successors a secure, low-carbon economy, a thriving natural environment and beautiful cities.

Above all, we want to build a stronger, more progressive welfare system to make sure that future generations inherit a better society – a society in which we encourage and enable everyone who can work to take work.

In 1942 William Beveridge wrote that the state “should not stifle incentive, opportunity, responsibility … in establishing a national minimum it should leave room and encouragement for voluntary action by each individual to provide more than that minimum for himself and his family”. The welfare state was never meant to be a lifestyle choice. Yet our economy has become over-reliant on welfare, with mass worklessness accepted as a fact of life and more than five million people on out-of-work benefits. The Labour government singularly failed to tackle our entrenched social problems, leaving a welfare system that is poorly targeted, unfair, wildly expensive, open to fraud and difficult to understand.

This week we have announced how we will correct these fundamental problems by replacing the existing system of working-age benefits and tax credits with a single, integrated universal credit to make work pay and enabling people to lift themselves out of dependency.

The point of this reform is not simply financial: it’s social and cultural too. It’s sending a clear signal about what fairness really means: being there for people when they need it but creating the incentive for people to do the right thing, by establishing a clear link between work and reward.

And this welfare reform goes alongside our massive work programme – paying social enterprises and private providers by the results they achieve in getting people back into work. Together, welfare reform and the work programme will make a reality for millions of people the fact that work, not benefit, is the most sustainable route out of poverty.

Tackling the deficit, handing power to the people, reforming our public services, achieving green growth, and building a new strategy in which welfare helps people into work instead of trapping them in dependency. Whether you agree with these aims or not, you cannot deny the scale of the ambition. We are actually working together and fixing our thoughts on the national interest. So, this year at least, a conference slogan represents a new reality in British politics.

Article for the Guardian.

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/04/coalition-welfare-reform-fairness

Monday 4 October 2010 20.35 BST