Serwotka: Reforms 'go further than Thatcher'

Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Sevices union (PCS) comments on the government's proposed welfare reforms:

"Picking up litter to receive benefits will stigmatise people and do nothing to get people back into long-term sustainable employment.

"The abolition of Incapacity Benefit will hit people with disabilities and there are question marks over whether the government will be forcing people to work for less than the minimum wage. The government should be working with people to get them back into employment rather penalising and threatening them."

"The proposals will entrench the role of the private sector in the delivery of welfare reform. The public sector has consistently out performed the private sector in getting people back into work and we fear that the profits for the few will increasingly be the driving factor in the delivery of welfare."