Sick benefit faces cut

Almost 3,000 long-term sick people across Rochdale face having their benefits slashed by £25 a week under a Tory Government.

The Conservatives pledged to remove incapacity benefit (IB) from the one-in-five claimants believed to be able to work by testing all 2.6 million existing claimants within three years.

Anyone judged ineligible to claim IB would instead be placed on job seekers’ allowance (JSA) — which pays £64.30 a week, instead of a typical £89.90.

With one-in-five expected to fail the tougher test, it would mean 2,828 of the 14,140 incapacity benefit claimants in the Rochdale area would lose out.

The Conservatives, meeting at their annual conference in Manchester, insisted that the shake-up would save £600 million over three years, sufficient to fund the party’s new work programme to speed up help for the jobless.

Explaining the new programme, party leader David Cameron said: “Labour has never really bitten the bullet of proper welfare reform.

“Instead of just pilot schemes for people on incapacity benefit, we are going to go through the 2.6 million people.

“Everybody knows that some of those people cannot work and must be helped, and we are a compassionate society and we must look after those people, but some of those people can work.”

The savings would fund back-to-work help for the young jobless after six months of unemployment, including 100,000 extra apprenticeships and 50,000 additional college places.

However, Employment Minister Jim Knight said the Tories only cared about cutting the benefit bill, rather than getting people into work.

He said: “We do believe savings can be made in the longer term and these are factored into Treasury plans. But this is not a quick fix.

“The only way the Tories can make £600 million savings quickly is by rapidly cutting payments for people who cannot possibly work.

“Having lumped people off unemployment on to sickness benefit in the previous recessions, now the Tories want to rush to shift them back into unemployment just so they can cut their benefits.

“This is unfair on the genuinely sick who should not suffer a £25-a-week cut in the benefits.”