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| The Daily Mail, 25 January 2006 |
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| TONY Blair unveiled his long-awaited crackdown on Britain's sicknote culture yesterday with plans to get a million on benefits back to work. |
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| From 2008, new incapacity benefit claimants risk losing part of their handouts if they refuse to take part in back-to-work schemes. |
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| Ministers will also seek to persuade one million older people and 300,000 single parents to return to employment. |
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| But last night the blueprint, finally published after repeated delays, was branded a 'damp squib'. |
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| The proposals for welfare reform made it clear that 2.7million existing incapacity benefit claimants are unlikely to lose a penny of their handouts. |
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| And what had been a firm pledge from the Prime Minister to get a million back into work over the next decade was downgraded to an 'aspiration'. |
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| Instead, the focus will be on reducing the number of new people signing up. |
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| In a separate move, unemployed over-50s will be required to take up 'jobseeking support' for the first time. |
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| Single parents will be expected to attend more work-focused interviews, but will receive Pounds 20 a week extra in benefit for doing so. |
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| The Conservatives immediately accused the Prime Minister of backing away from radical welfare reform in the face of a threatened rebellion from Labour MPs. |
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| Critics also pointed out that more than 800,000 existing incapacity benefit claimants are over 55 meaning they will hit retirement age and stop claiming anyway before the Government's tenyear deadline. |
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| When in opposition, Mr Blair promised to cut the welfare burden, telling the Labour conference in 1996: 'Judge me upon it, the buck stops with me.' But yesterday's 'new deal for welfare' made a series of startling admissions about the state of the incapacity benefit system almost nine years after Labour came to power. |
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| The Government admitted little was being done to prevent people moving on to the benefit in the first place, claimants are receiving handouts before satisfying key medical tests and there are ' perverse' incentives for people to keep claiming rather than going back to work. |
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| Work and Pensions Secretary John Hutton, unveiling the Green Paper on welfare reform, said incapacity benefit would be renamed Employment and Support Allowance from 2008. |
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| But the proposals make clear: 'Existing claimants will remain on their existing benefits.' The Department for Work and Pensions intends to work 'more proactively' with existing claimants, and will 'encourage' them to volunteer for help to return to work. |
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| Blind people will no longer be automatically exempt from being assessed on their capability to work. |
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| Other measures will include employment advisers being stationed in GPs' surgeries, aimed at encouraging more people to work rather than go on benefits. |
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| Mr Hutton told MPs several billion pounds could be saved from the annual Pounds 12.5billion bill for sickness benefits. But there was no sign of more radical measures floated by Downing Street, including more means-testing of incapacity benefit and a time limit on how long people can claim. |
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| Tory welfare reform spokesman David Ruffley said: 'This has turned into a damp squib. |
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'It's going to take over a decade to work and existing claimants won't be going on to the new renamed benefit.'
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| 'They look like they will be stuck in dependency, where many of them don't want to be.' The Campaign Group of Socialist MPs, representing 30 Labour backbenchers, warned it would oppose any moves to force incapacity claimants to work. |
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| The Government spends Pounds 31million a year printing advice leaflets on claiming benefits that are too complicated for most people to understand, according to the spending watchdog, the National Audit Office. |
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| WHO CLAIMS? |
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| THE record 2.7million working age people who get incapacity benefit has risen from just 720,000 in 1979. In some of the poorest parts of the country, one in four working age people is on incapacity benefit. Nearly 40 per cent of claimants have 'mental and behavioural' problems typically stress or depression. One perverse aspect of incapacity benefit is that you get more money if you keep on claiming. The initial Pounds 57.65 a week rises to Pounds 68.20 after 29 weeks and Pounds 76.45 after a year. |
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| THE NEW DEAL |
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| THE new Employment and Support Allowance will be a flat-rate benefit. |
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| Claimants will get it only by agreeing to 'work-related interviews' and a back-to-work 'action plan'. |
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| Those who refuse could lose around Pounds 11 a week, rising to Pounds 22 for a second refusal. They will not receive the allowance until they have had a full medical and passed a 'personal capability assessment.' Those with 'severe' health problems and disabilities will get the benefit at a higher rate without strings. Claimants will stay on their current benefits but be 'encouraged' to 'volunteer' for advice. |
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| SINGLE PARENTS |
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| ALL single parents whose youngest child is over 11 and has started secondary school will be expected to go to a ' work-focused' interview every three months. If they do they will get an extra Pounds 20 a week. If they do not go, they will not get extra cash but their income support payments will remain untouched. Single parents with younger children and who have been on benefits for at least a year will have to go to interviews once every six months. An extra one million workers over 50 should return to work. |
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