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.
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.
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.
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.
Thankfully, due to the United Kingdom and the commitment of the Westminster government we are able to ensure that money brought in, whether it be from the City of London or from North Sea oil, can be pooled and directed to wherever it is needed most. That is what being in the United Kingdom is all about.
I think that the status that you have in life should be reflected in official documents. If you are married, fine, if you are living with someone, fine, if you are single, fine. We don't want to tell people how to live their lives.
It's fairness to say those who work hard, get up in the morning, cut their cloth - in other words 'we can only afford to have one or two children because we don't earn enough'. They pay their taxes and they want to know that the same kind of decision-making is taking place for those on benefits.
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.
In Birmingham, Manchester or Liverpool there are white gangs that share the same backgrounds - they come from broken homes, completely dysfunctional, mums for the most part unable to cope, the fathers of these kids completely not in the scene.
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.
With the right support, a child growing up in a dysfunctional household, who was destined for a lifetime on benefits could be put on an entirely different track - one which sees them move into fulfilling and sustainable work. In doing so, they will pull themselves out of poverty.
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.
When families are strong and stable, so are children - showing higher levels of wellbeing and more positive outcomes. But when things go wrong - either through family breakdown or a damaged parental relationship - the impact on a child's later life can be devastating.
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.
Gang members have invariably grown up in broken, chaotic homes, often experiencing domestic violence; they have truanted from school and many have been formally excluded; and they live in neighbourhoods where worklessness, addiction and crime are rife.
