3 January 2006
New figures released today show a clear link between high numbers of people claiming incapacity benefit and deprivation.
And John Hutton, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has today written to 100 MPs across the country who represent the areas with the highest numbers of incapacity benefit claimants.
The letter has been sent ahead of planned reforms aimed at getting people off incapacity benefit and back to work.
In his letter, John Hutton tells MPs that we should not accept a system that "perpetuates hardship and denies people the opportunity to better their lives by accessing the world of work."
Although the government has made progress in reducing the number of new claimants, the reforms in the welfare green paper will break down the remaining barriers faced by people trying to get back to work. Incapacity benefit will be replaced with a new system that properly assesses what people can do and offers the right level of support to help them back into work. Those who truly cannot work will be given genuine protection.
The link between benefit dependency and deprivation is striking; research shows that nearly half of the most deprived areas in England, Wales and Scotland are in the hundred constituencies that have the largest numbers of incapacity benefit claimants. People who live in these constituencies are five times more likely to live in pockets of deprivation than those in the rest of the country.
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