3 December 2020 Iain Duncan Smith A system that was originally designed to support the poorest in society is now trapping them in the very condition it was supposed to alleviate.
3 December 2020 Iain Duncan Smith Government cannot do it all. As we work hard to break welfare dependency and get young people ready for the labour market, we need businesses to give them a chance and not just fall back on labour from abroad.
3 December 2020 Iain Duncan Smith By measuring the proportion of children living with the same parents from birth and whether their parents report a good quality relationship we are driving home the message that social programmes should promote family stability and avert breakdown.
3 December 2020 Iain Duncan Smith There are few more powerful tools for promoting stability than the institution of marriage.
3 December 2020 Iain Duncan Smith With participation in politics so low at the moment I think Christians should ensure their views are represented at all levels and not leave it to others.
3 December 2020 Iain Duncan Smith We do not celebrate people who have made success out of serious hard work.
3 December 2020 Iain Duncan Smith The future of Conservatism lies in our beliefs and values, not by throwing them away. We need to shed associations that bind us to past failures, but hold faith with those things that make us Conservatives.
3 December 2020 Iain Duncan Smith My view is pensioners don’t have the one option that people of working age have. They can’t really increase their income, because they are no longer able to work.
3 December 2020 Iain Duncan Smith Getting a family into work, supporting strong relationships, getting parents off drugs and out of debt – all this can do more for a child’s well-being than any amount of money in out-of-work benefits.
3 December 2020 Iain Duncan Smith Over the years the political establishment has frowned if a mainstream politician mentions marriage.
3 December 2020 Iain Duncan Smith Kids are meant to believe that their stepping stone to massive money is ‘The X Factor.’ Luck is great, but most of life is hard work. We do not celebrate people who have made success out of serious hard work.
3 December 2020 Iain Duncan Smith No one out there is interested in who did what to whom in Westminster politics.
3 December 2020 Iain Duncan Smith What we want to do is reform the welfare system in the way that Tony Blair talked about 13 years ago but never achieved – a system that was created for the days after the Second World War. That prize is now I think achievable.
3 December 2020 Iain Duncan Smith Kids are meant to believe that their stepping stone to massive money is ‘The X Factor.’
3 December 2020 Iain Duncan Smith For those who are able to work, work has to be seen as the best route out of poverty. For work is not just about more money – it is transformative. It’s about taking responsibility for yourself and your family.
3 December 2020 Iain Duncan Smith Work is transformative. It gives you a greater chance of a greater income. You can affect your life while you’re of working age, so you have scope and opportunity. Pensioners do not.
3 December 2020 Iain Duncan Smith We do a disservice to society if we ignore the evidence which shows that stable families tend to be associated with better outcomes for children.
3 December 2020 Iain Duncan Smith All too often, government’s response to social breakdown has been a classic case of ‘patching’ – a case of handing money out, containing problems and limiting the damage but, in doing so, supporting – even reinforcing – dysfunctional behaviour.
3 December 2020 Iain Duncan Smith When the news is good, the BBC view is: ‘Get the government out of the picture quickly, don’t allow them to say anything about it.’ When the news is bad: ‘Let’s all dump on the government.’
3 December 2020 Iain Duncan Smith We have to challenge the whole idea that it’s acceptable for a society like Britain to have such a significant number of people who do not work one day of the week and don’t have any possibility of improving the quality of their lives.
3 December 2020 Iain Duncan Smith If you look at the footballers, you look at our celebrity culture, we seem to be saying, ‘This is the way you want to be’. We seem to be a society that celebrates all the wrong people.
