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The government's welfare reforms will allow 300,000 households to move into work with the adoption of a universal credit system, Nick Clegg has said.
Writing in the Guardian, the deputy prime minister said the creation of a universal credit to replace all other means-tested handouts would help ensure people were always better off if they were employed.
The Liberal Democrat leader said those individuals who currently decline part-time work for fear of losing out financially would in future be able to take it.
Details of the universal credit plan will be unveiled in a white paper on Thursday.
"Our reforms will effectively remove the artificial disincentives created by existing rules about the numbers of hours people have to work," Clegg wrote.
"It must always be worth working, even for a few hours a week. Taken together, our welfare reforms should reduce the number of workless households by 300,000 within three years of implementation."
He added: "We are reforming welfare to make work pay, to encourage responsibility and to change lives for the better. That's what we mean by fairness."
The intervention came as MPs debated housing benefit curbs that Labour claims will hit the poorest.
Shadow work and pensions secretary Douglas Alexander said: "There is a difference between having a duty to act and acting in such a precipitate and reckless fashion that it ultimately ends up costing the taxpayer more."
Despite concerns raised by some Liberal Democrats during the debate none of the party's MPs backed the Labour motion, although Bob Russell (Colchester) voted in both the Aye and No lobbies.
Clegg fills in for the prime minister at PMQs this lunchtime, facing deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman at the despatch box.
Cameron continues his trip to China and Miliband is currently on paternity leave following the birth of his second child.
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