A HAMPSHIRE MP clashed with Benefits Street star Deirdre Kelly over whether the Government's welfare crackdown is too harsh.

Fareham MP Mark Hoban went head-to-head with White Dee - as she was known on the controversial TV show - over the surge in benefit “sanctions”.

Thousands of allegedly “workshy” jobseekers in Hampshire have been docked jobseeker's allowance (JSA) - for up to 13 weeks, for a first offence - after rules were tightened.

Most sanctions were applied because claimants missed job centre appointments or avoided finding a job, ministers said - but critics say many were for trivial reasons.

In the debate, at a fringe meeting at the Conservative Party conference, Ms Kelly said the crackdown meant the benefits system had “got considerably worse” since 2010.

She said: “I think people are too quick to sanction people who are looking for jobs. You do have to deal with it on an individual basis.

“I know people who apply for 20, 30 jobs a week. You can't force an employer to give you a job.

“What you have to do is make sure the resources are there to enable the jobseeker to get a job, be a bit more realistic with what kind of schemes are available to them.”

Ms Dee criticised a tough new plan targeting 18 to 21-year-olds, saying: “You can't say no benefits after six months, if there is nothing out there for them.”

She also condemned Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith for being “out of touch with the real world" and revealed she was leaning towards voting for Ukip at next year's general election.

But Mr Hoban, until recently the work minister responsible for sanctions, insisted they were an “important part of the benefits system”.

He told the meeting: “There is a contract between the taxpayer and people looking for work. Jobseeker's allowance - the clue is in the title.

“Taxpayers expect that jobseekers will do everything they can to find work, within reason. If they don't turn up to confirmed interviews, it's right that they should be sanctioned.

“There need to be measures so that people who don't make the most of their opportunities do lose some of their benefits.”

Ms Kelly was one of the main characters to emerge in the Channel 4 documentary Benefits Street, which showed the lives of the residents on a road in Birmingham where the majority of were purported to be living on benefits.

As reported by the Daily Echo, the programme makers, Love Productions, are currently putting together a follow-up series called Immigration Street based in the St Mary's area of Southampton.