Welfare pledge will take Cameron into Labour's territory

David Cameron will unveil proposals to overhaul the social security system and pledge to deliver the changes Labour has promised for more than a decade.

The Tory leader believes he can use his party's recent resurgence to march on to Labour territory Mr Brown has jealously guarded until now.

The Tories believe they are waging a war of attrition with the Prime Minister in the wake of his humiliation in the Commons last week.

Mr Cameron will use a major speech on welfare policy to suggest privatising job centres and paying a "bounty" to companies for every jobless person they hire.

He will also seek to appropriate the slogan of the Make Poverty History campaign for more international aid championed by Mr Brown with a Conservative pledge to "Make British Poverty History".

The main focus of the speech will be a sustained attack on Mr Brown's record on welfare.

The Tory leader believes that although the social security budget has increased dramatically over the last decade, Mr Brown's "methods have failed and it is time for a change".

He will argue that under Labour there are 600,000 more people living in severe poverty and that Britain's levels of drug abuse are the highest in Europe.

He will say there is a "hidden army" of 4.9million unemployed living on benefits, citing evidence from former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith's Breakdown Britain'report last year.

The Tory leader will point out that alcohol-related deaths are rising, that personal insolvency is on the rise and that the UK has the highest proportion of workless households with children in the EU.

He will say: "Fighting poverty is no less about aspiration than cutting inheritance tax and stamp duty.

"Do not tell me that a society which can decode the human genome, build the world's greatest financial centre and provide the young men and women that form the finest armed forces on earth cannot fight and win the battle against poverty.

"We can make British poverty history, and will make British poverty history.

"But only if we are honest about the causes of poverty and address ourselves to the long-term task of removing those causes as well as the symptoms.

"I do not doubt for one moment Mr Brown's sincere desire to remove the scourge of poverty from our land.

"But he must see, as we can all now see, that his methods have failed and it is time for change.

"It is time for change when the number of people out of work and on benefits has risen to almost five million, the number of people going bankrupt has reached record levels and when the number of alcohol related deaths has increased by 40 per cent.

"Gordon Brown and Labour do not have a vision to make British poverty history. The Conservatives do."

An aide to Mr Cameron said last night: "This is another area on which we are setting the agenda.

"Gordon Brown has failed to deal with this issue so we are doing it ourselves."