Work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith says the Government will explore a 'social housing broadband tariff' to enable those to claim the new Universal Credit online.

From next October, Universal Credit will replace six income-related benefits, including housing benefit, which claimants will apply online for and receive as a single monthly payment.

The Government says it’s committed to providing support for those without online access and has recently selected councils to pilot such support. However, its aspiration is for 80% of Universal Credit claims to be made online by 2017.

Recent estimates suggest nearly half of council and housing association tenants in England do not have access to the internet or have never gone online.

In the Commons yesterday evening, Conservative MP for Rossendale and Darwen Jake Berry asked the work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith – the driving force behind Universal Credit – to explore the possibility of a 'social housing broadband tariff'.

He said: “BT does a social housing telephone tariff. Will he explore the possibility of a social housing broadband tariff to enable those who want to claim their benefits online to do so?"

Mr Duncan Smith said this was exactly what the Government was trying to do.

He said: “Absolutely right. That is exactly what we are trying to do, and I will ensure that it is one of the areas we look at. That is the whole process we are engaged in. If we can get more people in social housing online, the net benefit will be phenomenal. We are all desperate for more broadband, but the people who will benefit the most—for shopping and so on—will be older people and others in difficulty on lower incomes. They will benefit massively, if we can begin to get them online. This is a crusade as much as anything else.”

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It has soma advantages but also it gives the lazy ones more reason to sit on there backsides watching there 52 inch plasma rather tha look for a job. I think this is another case of people on benefits reicievng things that most of us have to work for.