The Welfare Reform White Paper had been billed as a radical crackdown designed to stop people languishing on benefits by forcing them to abide by a intensive regime to improve their job prospects.

Announcing the move, James Purnell, the Work and Pensions Secretary, will claim that the measures will prevent all but a small group of people, including the severely disabled, their carers and mothers with "babes in arms", from receiving hand-outs while doing nothing in return.

But it has emerged that demands on parents with children between the ages of one and seven, who will be included in a new "progression to work" category, may amount to little more than tinkering with a CV or looking up the local child care facilities on offer in the neighbourhood.

Mr Purnell will say: "I believe that for the majority, work is part of the path to that better life which is why our reforms put the individual, and their needs, at the heart of the welfare system.

"We will give people the support they need and in return we will have higher expectations on people to take up that support."

I believe it is wrong to have a welfare system which doesn't encourage people to prepare for or get back to work. In future virtually everyone will be expected to do something in return for their benefits.''

Officials confirmed that the new regime would introduce a system where "virtually everyone" will be expected to do something in return for their benefits, with the "progression to work group" being asked to show that they are taking active steps to return to the workforce.

For the parents of small children, a Department for Work and Pensions source suggested: "This could be as simple as updating their CV or finding out about locally available childcare, or could be something more intensive like full time training or a work trial."

The only exceptions will be carers, workless parents of very young children and severely disabled people.

The so-called crackdown is designed for the first time to cover unemployed couples as well as lone parents.At present, around 350,000 couples receive benefits such as Jobseeker's Allowance and Income Support, and can choose for themselves which partner submits the claim.

The other partner is currently spared any requirement to seek work, even if they are fully capable of finding employment.

More than 400,000 children live in a home where no one works, and ministers say that it is only "fair" to extend the recent shake-up of the benefits paid to lone parents to cover couples as well.In future couples will be made to submit a joint claim for Jobseeker's Allowance.

Those with children aged seven or more will have to prove that they are actively seeking work, while parents of younger children will be categorised in the progression to work group once they reach the age of one.

Popular Alliance Comment:

Tony Blair wanted Frank Field to think the unthinkable with the welfare state. It was Gordon Brown who denied him this opportunity and set about creating a bigger dependance on Welfare than ever before. Was this about helping people or creating Labour voters who feel indebted.These new changes will once again prove to have no substance and the undeserving will continue to fiddle the system and the truly deserving will lose out.