The Big Issue is used by migrants to claim benefits, says Iain Duncan Smith

Work and pensions secretary speaks out in row over tax credits – but magazine says it's the system that is flawed

Iain Duncan Smith: claimed the Big Issue is being used by immigrants to claim benefits. Photograph: Dave Thompson/PA

Iain Duncan Smith has said the magazine sold by the homeless, the Big Issue, is being used by immigrants to claim benefits.

The work and pensions secretary made the claim when answering questions on British welfare policy following a speech in Berlin.

Both the Times (here) and Mail Online (here) report his response to a questioner who asked for evidence of his claims about abuse of the benefits system.

He said it was necessary to deal with the perception of abuse to which that was "a core element of truth" about benefits tourism. According to the Times, he went on to say:

"A good example of that is the Big Issue, a magazine which is a brilliant idea by a brilliant individual who himself was homeless. It is wonderful.

But actually what is happening progressively, more and more, is people mostly from southern and eastern Europe have actually ended up being Big Issue sellers and they claim, as self-employed, immediately, tax credits.

So when we talk about benefits, they are not just out-of-work benefits, they are also in-work benefits that are being claimed."

The Big Issue was unimpressed with Duncan Smith's claim. The Times quotes the magazine's spokesman as saying: "The flaws which IDS has highlighted were inherent in a benefits system created by the government and, to that extent, the problem is the government's and not one of [our] making.

"The Big Issue was set up to lift people into work and reduce the chance of people in need ever resorting to wrongdoing.

"By giving people a genuine hand up rather than a handout it is providing a real cost-saving for the taxpayer."

I am awaiting a further reply from the Big Issue's founder, John Bird.

Sources: The Times/Mail Online