Those who remain unemployed, despite a wealth of job opportunities, will cease to receive a jobseekers’ allowance in new plans unveiled this week.

Work and pensions secretary John Hutton told delegates at the Institute for Public Policy Research that unemployment remained high in parts of the country such as Manchester and Glasgow, despite a comparatively significant volume of vacancies.

He argued that it was unfair to expect hard-working families to support a small jobshy proportion of the population.

“We know there is a small group of benefit claimants without major physical or health barriers to work associated with incapacity benefit - who live in areas where there is no shortage of vacancies, particularly for low-skilled jobs, but who nonetheless remain on benefits for long periods of time,” Mr Hutton said.

Almost a million people were on the dole in November, according to official statistics, which represents nearly ten times the number who claimed the allowance during the month in six of the last seven years.

Responding to vociferous criticism of the scheme from both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, the work and pensions secretary noted that immigrants were willing to take job opportunities and that unemployed Brits should do the same.

He said “If workers from Poland can take advantage of these vacancies in our major cities - why can’t our own people do so as well?”

Jobseekers receiving allowances but failing to seek employment undermines the “fairness” of the principles on which the welfare state was founded, he concluded.