Text Only Version Last Update: Press Releases (22 May 2006)
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Number on sickness benefit has risen 20 times under Labour
The Daily Mail, 2 February 2006
THE number of people receiving sickness handouts for more than five years has risen 20-fold since Labour came to power, it has emerged.
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In May 1997 , 68 , 000 claimants had been in receipt of incapacity benefit for five years or more. By May last year, the figure had soared to almost 1.5million.
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The statistics, disclosed in a written Parliamentary answer by Work and Pensions Minister Anne McGuire, cast fresh doubts over Labour's proposed crackdown on Britain's sicknote culture.
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From 2008, new claimants risk losing some of their payments if they refuse to take part in back-to-work schemes.
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But shadow minister for welfare reform David Ruffley who uncovered the figures said it was clear urgent action was needed to tackle the huge numbers already claiming the benefits long-term.
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He said those claiming for more than a year had less than a one-in-five chance of ever returning to work.
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'The Government has been pretending that progress has been made recently in reducing incapacity benefit claims,' said Mr Ruffley.
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'But these figures defy any suggestion that Ministers have got a grip on the situation.' The total number on incapacity benefit is around 2.8million or seven per cent of the working age population compared to just 720,000 in 1979.
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Labour argues that the largest increase in claims came under the last Conservative government.
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Overall, the number of claimants has remained fairly constant since Labour came to power in 1997.
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But while the number of shorter-term claimants has fallen, long-term recipients have rocketed.
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The figures show that 1.8million people had been claiming incapacity benefits for between two to five years in 1997. Some in this group will have moved into the five-year plus category in the meantime, accounting for some of the rise.
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But Mr Ruffley said the fact that the number of claimants on benefits for more than five years had soared from 68,000 in 1997 to 1.46million last year showed that Labour had turned its back on the problem. He said: 'Labour have had almost nine years to tackle incapacity benefit, rather than leaving people trapped in dependency where many do not want to be.' The Government has admitted little is being done to prevent people moving onto incapacity benefit in the first place, with claimants receiving handouts before satisfying key medical tests. A key criticism is that people get more money if they keep on claiming. The initial Pounds 57.65 a week rises to Pounds 68.20 after 29
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weeks and Pounds 76.45 after a year.
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In some deprived parts of Britain, one in four people of working age is now claiming.
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The total number citing mental illness, such as stress or depression, has risen to 40 per cent of the total, compared to less than a quarter in 1997.
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Work and Pensions Secretary John Hutton is planning to strip out the perverse incentives to keep claiming from 2008 and Mr Blair is aiming to get a million people on sickness benefits back into work within the next decade.
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But opposition MPs have complained that the focus will be on reducing the number of new people signing up, rather than reducing the huge number of long-term claimants.
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A spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions said: 'Almost 60 per cent of people who started to receive incapacity benefits in 2004 left within a year.
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'However, for the remaining 40 per cent who do not return to work quickly, the prognosis is bleak.
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'Only 22 per cent of claimants already claiming for a year will leave within the next year and 29 per cent of them will still be receiving benefits after another eight years.
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'This is the result of a system that, rather than helping people with health conditions back into work, simply allowed them to remain on benefits with little or no intervention.
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