CHRISTMAS is a time of generosity, but Labour’s concern for the poor owes more to Machiavelli than to good King Wenceslas. At first it emphasised its break with old Labour, using slogans such as “work for those who can, security for those who cannot”. But figures just published show that more people are receiving key benefits than did when Labour came to power, despite a huge fall in unemployment. Why? Because it suits the Government to have a growing client base of welfare claimants to keep it in office.

Benefit dependency fell rapidly during the last years of Tory rule. In 1995, 6.8 million people of working age were receiving key benefits. By November 1998 the number had fallen to 6.01 million, but once Labour’s policies kicked in, it began to rise again. This month the figure is 6.59 million.

Under Labour, the numbers receiving unemployment benefit have fallen from 2.1 million to under 800,000, but many moved to sickness and disability benefits instead and the number on working tax credit — a wage top-up paid to people who earn up to £97 a week, even if they work as little as 16 hours a week — grew to 1.75 million.

By this year, the proportion of the working age population dependent on key benefits was 18.3 per cent. And if we measure households rather than individuals, 30 per cent of households were receiving more than half their income from the State in 2002-03, according to the government Family Resources Survey.

But in the United States, welfare reform, pioneered in Wisconsin, has achieved dramatic results: dependency fell from 14 million to 7 million people during 1994-99. Instead of using the benefit system to manipulate incentives to work, Workfare lays down the firm rule that there will be no benefits without work. Labour studied US welfare reform, but failed to implement it because it has subordinated public policies to party political imperatives.

Labour sometimes defends its use of benefits to encourage part-time work by claiming that it keeps people in touch with the world of work, but the American approach aims for self-sufficiency and the sense of self-worth that comes with it. It won’t have escaped Labour’s attention, that people who are dependent on the State tend to be more easily led and less vigilant in defence of their freedoms than those who are not.

David Green is director of the Civitas think-tank