Anti-poverty campaigners have warned the Department for Work and Pensions' ambitious plans to reform the UK's welfare system could be ‘wrecked' by the £18bn savings package sought by the Treasury.

The Child Poverty Action Group said the work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith's welfare reform Bill, published on 17 February has, at its heart, a valuable aim – to ‘make work pay' more than benefits so that people are encouraged into jobs.