500K Britons to lose disability benefits

The Work and Pensions Secretary said that he is determined to introduce radical reforms to disability benefits which will see more than two million claimants reassessed in the next four years.

Iain Duncan Smith said that the number of claimants has risen by 30 percent in recent years “rising well ahead of any other gauge you might make about illness, sickness, disability”.

“Losing a limb should not automatically entitle people to a pay-out”, he suggested.

The cost of disability living allowance, which is intended to help people meet the extra costs of mobility and care associated with their conditions, now outstrips unemployment benefit and will soon be £13 billion annually.

Ministers plan to replace it with a “more focused” benefit that requires medical assessment for eligibility.

“It’s not like incapacity benefit, it’s not a statement of sickness. It is a gauge of your capability”, said Duncan Smith.

“In other words, do you need care, do you need support to get around. Those are the two things that are measured. Not, you have lost a limb…”, he added.

Duncan Smith claims the system has been “exploited and abused”.

MOL/JR/HE

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