Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith has set out plans for an assault on unemployment and invalidity benefits, as the precursor to a broader assault on welfare provision. The proposals were unveiled on Thursday as part of the Conservative Liberal Democrat coalitions pledge to slash public spending and make “radical” changes in welfare... Duncan Smith said that a new “work programme” will strip the unemployed off benefits if they refuse to take a job offer.
The 2.5 million people in receipt of incapacity benefit are also to be targeted. “Tougher” medical tests initially planned under the Labour government to drive the sick and disabled into work, are to be fast-tracked by the coalition government to next year. The new test will assess if those claiming incapacity benefit are capable of taking “desk or administrative jobs or part-time work”.
Duncan Smith bases his plans on Department of Work and Pensions figures suggesting that the nearly all of the UK’s 2.6 million incapacity benefit claimants should be in work. Already, since October 2008, all new claimants for incapacity benefit have been given medicals to see if they able to go to work. These tests found that nine out of 10 new applicants were either fit for work or could be moved towards rejoining the workforce—meaning that they were ready to join a “work related activity group”.
In reality, a BBC Scotland investigation found that “tens of thousands of claimants who are genuinely sick or disabled may have been refused the new Employment Support Allowance”...
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/may2010/dole-m29.shtml
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