The work and pensions secretary has defended changes to the welfare system, including disability benefit reforms.
Iain Duncan Smith has said the raft of changes should save the taxpayer £50bn by the end of this Parliament.
Among them are new tougher criteria that disabled people must meet to be granted allowances, which have been criticised as harsh and unfair.
But Mr Duncan Smith said the changes would "help and benefit" those who were well enough to get back into work.
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End Quote Iain Duncan SmithWe haven't introduced this to hurt or to harm disabled people. The purpose is to try to support disabled people"
"I think the work programme is now for the first time ever working with people, who were once on sickness benefits and who are now not, going back to work," Mr Duncan Smith told BBC One's Andrew Marr Show.
He said the new regime would see disabled benefits claimants assessed on a regular basis to determine whether they need more support with their ailments or help to get work.
"There were over a million [people] not looked at for over 10 years," Mr Duncan Smith said.
"These regular reviews, I think, will help them and benefit them. We haven't introduced this to hurt or to harm disabled people. The purpose is to try to support disabled people."
'Fair system'He said: "The idea is to get people assessed so that we can find out those whose conditions have improved can then seek work, and many are going back to work now , and those who need full support get that full support."
The government has been gradually rolling out the new Personal Independence Payment (Pip) to replace the Disability Living Allowance (DLA).
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End Quote Iain Duncan Smith[Atos] will actually pay reparations for failure to achieve what they were meant to achieve"
Under the old disability regime, claimants had to prove they could walk no further than 50m without support to receive the top end of the allowance.
Now, they will have to prove they can manage no more than 20m to benefit from the top payment.
Mr Duncan Smith insisted this was not a straight forward change, and that people would be assessed in two stages - on how much difficulty they have in reaching 20m first, and then 50m.
"What we're trying to do with these reforms is to get them to be fair so that the people who need them get better payments, and those who don't need the higher levels don't take the higher levels," Mr Duncan Smith said.
Under the DLA system, he said, 70% of people who made a claim got awards "for life".
The new regime will include regular face-to-face checks to establish the extent of claimants' ailments.
Atos contractMeanwhile, the work and pensions secretary said the government had sought to end a contract with the firm Atos, which was tasked with assessing whether benefit claimants were fit to work.
Mr Duncan Smith said it was not Atos that had ended the arrangement, despite reports.
He added that the taxpayer would pay nothing for the early break in the contract and that Atos would pay reparations for failing to perform what it was supposed to.
"They didn't ask us to go, we've asked them," he said.
"We will not pay a penny for that. They will actually pay reparations for failure to achieve what they were meant to achieve."
He said the government would immediately compete for other contracts.
'Bedroom tax'The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) expects almost half of the £50bn in savings to come in the next 12 months.
The raft of welfare reforms, introduced a year ago, also included what the government calls the removal of the "spare room subsidy" but critics call the "bedroom tax".
Mr Duncan Smith, defending it, said it was not a tax but rather a "balanced and fair" policy for taxpayers.
He said for years, people had been subsidised to live in accommodation they could not fully occupy.
He said taxpayers on low and marginal incomes had to choose a house based on what they could afford, and that he believed it was "quite right" that those on social housing faced the same choice.
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