Young people with ADHD should be pushed towards work rather than abandoned to a life on benefits, Kemi Badenoch said today.

As she unveiled Conservative plans to slash £36billion from the welfare bill, the Tory leader highlighted how many people with physical and mental disabilities have overcome adversity through hard work.

In a major speech this morning, where the cost of the handout system is 'crushing our economy', she pledged to

Mrs Badenoch acknowledged that there must be a safety net for those who 'genuinely cannot work'.

But she added: 'The reality is that millions of people can work and do contribute – to our economy, to their families, to their communities – even when they face serious challenges.

'Double amputees run marathons. People who are housebound do wonderful creative work from home. People with autism run some of the biggest tech companies in the world.

'If you tell a young person that their ADHD means they are defective and they can't do anything, that is likely to be more destructive to their future than the condition itself.

'Yet that is what our welfare system is currently doing. We are going to change that.'

Mrs Badenoch published a 52-page report setting out the case for welfare reform and the details of the proposals.

Foreign nationals from outside the EU will also be barred from claiming benefits in this country.

And the two-child benefit cap scrapped by Labour will be reinstated, saving the taxpayer £3.1billion a year.

Mrs Badenoch denied the Conservatives were blaming young people with their plans for welfare cuts, with Mrs Badenoch saying: 'No one is blaming young people.

'What we're blaming is the system that has been created where too much money is being spent on welfare and the Government doesn't really want to do anything about it.'

In her speech, the Tory leader highlighted the latest official figures showing that working age welfare now costs the country £180billion a year.

The figure equals around £500million a day and is more than the UK spends on defence, education and the police combined. The sum costs the average taxpayer more than £4,000 a year each and is more than the entire GDP of Ukraine.

'The weight of this welfare burden is crushing our economy and plunging us deeper and deeper into debt,' she said. 

'There is no world in which the current system is sustainable - and not just because of the cost.'  

Mrs Badenoch argued that the approach to welfare exposes a 'fundamental difference' between the Conservatives and Labour, which thinks that 'cutting welfare is always cruel' and that there's nothing wrong with a life of dependency'.

She contrasted the Tories' detailed work on welfare reform with the latest delays to Andy Burnham's ten-year plan for government, which he first promised in the summer.

'It is too late to work out what you think once you're in government,' she said. 'If you want to change this country, you need to know exactly what you want to do and how you're going to do it.'

The new Conservative plan, titled Welfare That Works, sets out a string of proposals for curbing the runaway welfare budget.

Other measures include trimming £4.5billion from the housing benefit bill, which is forecast to hit £42billion by the end of the parliament – a £10billion increase in five years. In future, payments would be pegged to rents in the cheapest 10 per cent of the market, instead of the cheapest 30 per cent.

The plans also involve a back-to-work programme, including lifting the cap on apprenticeships and halving employers' National Insurance payments for workers aged under 25.

The Tory document acknowledges that the party's reforms will be 'fiercely resisted', saying that welfare reform is 'not easy'. 

But it argues that reform can no longer be ducked.

Shadow welfare secretary Helen Whately said the bill was running 'out of control', adding: 'Beveridge's welfare state was a noble ambition. To stand by those who could not stand on their own. But today's system has grown far beyond anything he envisaged. A safety net designed for a country emerging from war now funds free cars for people claiming for acne and tennis elbow.'

The Government was forced to abandon plans to shave £5billion off the welfare bill last year following a revolt by Labour MPs.

The Prime Minister has said he is determined to rein in welfare spending 'in a Labour way', avoiding 'crude cuts'.

Reviews of youth unemployment and disability benefits are expected in the coming weeks. But neither are likely to lead to short-term savings, with ministers admitting that Alan Milburn's plan to tackle the youth unemployment crisis is likely to carry substantial upfront costs.

Chancellor John Healey has warned that the welfare bill will not be cut before the election.

A Labour Party spokesman said: 'The Tories' so-called ''plan'' is a charter for homelessness and human misery that would push people into hardship and end up costing the state more.

'The crude cuts they want to make would compound the mistakes they made in government, which led to the welfare bill rocketing by nearly £114 billion and a NEETs crisis.'