Labour did not do “enough” when it was in power to reform the welfare system, party leader Ed Miliband has said.
He told the BBC there was still a “minority” of able-bodied adults not in work, which “hacks people off”.
Tony Blair made welfare reform a top priority when he came to power in 1997.
But many of the party’s more radical ideas were shelved – and have only just resurfaced now as the coalition seeks to make work pay and shake-up what it says is a system in “crisis”.
Labour has said it will back welfare secretary Iain Duncan Smith’s plans to replace all existing benefits with a single, universal payment and tackle the culture of worklessness it says has taken hold in some communities.
In an interview with the BBC’s Nick Robinson, Mr Miliband said: “There is a minority in many communities who can work and aren’t doing so and we need to act on that.
“It is a minority in my view but it hacks people off and I understand why it hacks people off because they say, look, I’m working all the hours god sends, I’m working 50/60 hours a week… and I’m struggling to make ends meet and I feel the person next door isn’t doing their bit.”
Asked about Labour’s record, Mr Miliband said: “I don’t think we did enough on welfare reform, I agree.”
Labour MP Frank Field, Mr Blair’s welfare reform minister who was asked to “think the unthinkable”, before being forced out of his role by Mr Miliband’s former boss at the Treasury Gordon Brown, has been helping out with the coalition’s welfare reform plans.
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