Iain Duncan Smith
Iain Duncan Smith
George Iain Duncan Smith, often referred to by his initials IDS, is a British Conservative Party politician. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions from 2010 to 2016, he was previously the Leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition from 2001 to 2003. He was first elected to Parliament at the 1992 general election as the MP for Chingford– which he represented until the constituency's abolition in 1997–and he has represented its successor constituency of Chingford...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth9 April 1954
I am not going to go round trying to make people say 'Wow!'... I'm not going to play Hollywood lookalikes.
If you knowingly and willingly embark on criminal behaviour, the consequences of that should be... that you lose some of your benefits under the current system
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.
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.
There is nothing people can throw at me to say: Do this, do that.
We do need to have a little bit more protection and sensibility around pensioners. They are remarkable. They gave so much. We need to make sure we do our best by them.
With high underemployment - currently over one million part-time workers in the UK want to work more hours - sanctioning clients who cannot increase their hours seems to be both unworkable and unfair.
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.
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.
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.
Even as our economy starts to pick up, and new jobs are created, there is a risk that young people in Britain won't get the chances they deserve because businesses will continue to look elsewhere.
After years of piecemeal reform the current welfare system is complex and unfair.
A good proportion of foreign nationals in jobs in the UK are in semi or low-skilled occupations.
Every parent wants to know that their children are protected against those who have a particular agenda until they get old enough to make decisions for themselves.