Sick benefit claimants will be told to take jobs

“ESA may have been designed with the right intentions but at its heart lies a fundamental flaw”.

Iain Duncan Smith will today say he will be “relentless” in delivering welfare reform, as he makes the case for moving ill people off benefits and into jobs because work is “good for your health”.

“Quite often people want to work if they are on the sickness benefit, but they cannot work because they are not allowed to otherwise they lose their benefits”.

A spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions said: “The new state pension reflects a bold move to a system that is fairer, simpler and easier to understand”.

In his first major speech since the general election, Mr Duncan Smith will insist that employment support allowance (ESA) and the work capability assessment, both introduced by Labour, must be reformed.

Mr Duncan Smith will say that “work is good for your health” and that while some people will be unable to work, those who can should.

The DWP spokesperson also revealed Duncan Smith would challenge employers to improve the relationships they have with signed-off sick workers, so they have “regular and direct” communications over the kinds of support they need to return to work.

A system that is better geared towards helping people prepare for work they may be capable of, rather than parking them forever beyond work.

Hundreds of thousands of people could be forced into work under government plans to overhaul sickness benefit assessments.

And despite the “scaremongering” the UK spends more on the sick and disabled than the average in the other nations in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). “Yet, even though we have got more disabled people into work, that is only the beginning”. “We want to ensure everyone has the opportunity to transform their lives for the better by getting into work”. Those who receive the payment have their fitness to work tested under the Work Capability Assessment.

The controversial step is needed to tackle a “sickness benefit culture”, trapping about 2.5 million people in unemployment, Iain Duncan Smith will say.

Almost one in four jobseeker’s allowance claimants have a common mental health condition and need more support to find, and stay, in employment, he added.

“This needs to change – things are rarely that simplistic”.

“We need a system focused on what a claimant can do and the support they’ll need – and not just on what they can’t do”.

“Nearly 11 million adults in the UK have a common mental health condition….and people are much more likely to fall out of work if they do”, he will say. But it will be a nervous wait for those who face the prospect of their only income being pulled, as the government continues to cut the resources of the most vulnerable.

“The cruel and crude approach of the Tories has already driven many people to despair and this new drive will cause even more anxiety”.