IAIN Duncan Smith claims Britain's welfare system is unsustainable - as he prepares to unveil a new report on the issue.

The Woodford Green MP, and cabinet member for Work and Pensions, is set to publish a document on the system today (Thursday) which will show that 1.4 million people in Britain have been on unemployment benefits for nine out of the past ten years and that income inequality in Britain is at worst since records began in the 1960s.

The former Tory leader said the UK cannot go on spending 14 per cent of its national income on the welfare system during an interview with The Guardian newspaper, in which he also claimed that benefits are a 'deeply ineffective and costly way of subsidising people's lives.'

Mr Duncan Smith is also reported to have said that welfare payments make it too 'risky' for many people to get a job, because it would benefit them very little financially to do so.

He said that benefits payments for the middle class may have to be reduced and swapped for cuts to income tax, and that the state pension retirement age could be raised more quickly than planned.