Tories call for benefit claimant medicals

THE Conservatives yesterday demanded an immediate independent medical check for every Incapacity Benefit claimant in the UK, after a Government welfare adviser suggested that almost two million of them should not be receiving the cash.

Banker David Freud, whose report last year formed the basis for welfare-to-work reforms currently being pushed through by the Government, said the medical checks required to claim IB were "ludicrous" and could be costing the country billions of pounds.

He suggested that the "real figure" of people with illnesses and disabilities which make them unable to work is closer to the 700,000 on the benefit in the 1980s than the 2.64 million now claiming a total of more than £12bn a year.

Shadow work and pensions secretary Chris Grayling said Freud's comments reflected the fact that the Government had "lost control" of the welfare system.

Last Monday, new Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell set out plans to commission private and voluntary sector firms to help IB claimants into work.

Freud said he believed Prime Minister Gordon Brown was ready to press ahead with the biggest shake-up of the welfare state for 50 years, and thought Purnell would tackle the problem with "much more single minded ferocity" than his predecessor Peter Hain, who quit last week.

He suggested that fewer than one-third of those claiming IB – worth up to £81.35 a week – were truly entitled to it, while "5% to 7%" – between 132,000 and 185,000 people – were illegally working while receiving the benefit.

"When the whole rot started in the 1980s we had 700,000," said Freud. "I suspect that's much closer to the real figure than the one we've got now.

"It's ludicrous that the disability tests are done by people's own GPs – they've got a classic conflict of interest and they're frightened of legal action."

Grayling said: "What we've learnt today confirms our fears that the Government has lost control of the welfare system in this country."

The Department of Work and Pensions said that numbers of claimants was falling, but agreed that many people currently on IB "could and should" be working.