Young unemployed people should be forced to repay their benefit money when they get a job, an influential group of Conservative MPs has said.
The proposal to pay benefits as a loan would give them "an additional incentive to find work rather than allow the debt to build up".
The idea is included in a new book setting out a "radical" free market agenda for the Conservative government.
Author Kwasi Kwarteng is seen as a rising star on the right of the party.
The Conservative MP and junior ministerial aide argues that free enterprise - rather than government interference - is the answer to the problems facing Britain.
Chancellor George Osborne is understood to be considering reducing tax credits for millions of working families in his July Budget, as part of the government's efforts to "make work pay", although critics accuse him of making the poor pay for the mistakes of bankers.
'Stingy' benefits
Mr Kwarteng's book argues for a more radical shrinking of the welfare state to return it to the contributory principle envisioned by its founder Sir William Beveridge - that you only get out what you have paid in....
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