Conservative MP apologises for saying benefits claimants should get sterilised

The Conservative vice chairman for youth has apologised for comments lsuggesting that people on benefits should be sterilised.

MP Ben Bradley, 28, backtracked over a blog post describing jobseekers as "unemployed wasters" and saying that those who can't afford children should undergo vasectomies.

"Sorry but how many children you have is a choice; if you can't afford them, stop having them! Vasectomies are free," he wrote in the personal blog in 2012.

"Families who have never worked a day in their lives having four or five kids and the rest of us having one or two means it's not long before we're drowning in avast sea of unemployed wasters that we pay to keep!"

Mr Bradley, the Member of Parliament for Mansfield, deleted the post after it was highlighted by Buzzfeed News.

"I apologise for these posts," he said.

"My time in politics has allowed me to mature and I now realise that this language is not appropriate."