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Action promised against 'outrageous' number of people on sickness benefits






Posted by Tony Flynn on 16th August 2010 at 04:57 PM
Action promised against 'outrageous' number of people on sickness benefits
Almost 900,000 people have spent a decade or more "on the sick" at a cost of £4.2 billion a year to the taxpayer, the Government revealed today.

Employment Minister Chris Grayling described the figures as "outrageous" and promised action to get people off benefits and back into work.

The disclosure comes as Prime Minister David Cameron made cutting the cost of welfare a key priority in the new coalition Government's drive to tackle Britain's record deficit.

The figures come from an analysis carried out by Mr Grayling of the latest official statistics.

He found there were 889,000 people who spent all of the last 10 years on sickness benefits, at an average annual cost of £4.2 billion.

"The sheer amount of people who have been left behind without any help or support to get back into work is outrageous," Mr Grayling said.

"Thousands of people who have simply been cast aside by a welfare system that does nothing but put them in a queue for benefits and then forgets about them.

"Well those days are over. We will no longer accept a system which writes people off at a drop of the hat and expects the taxpayer to foot the bill."

The Government already said it intends to reassess all incapacity benefit claimants to see if they are capable of working.

Pilot projects are due to start in Burnley and Aberdeen to examine claimants to see if they can start work right away or need help through the Government's new work programme.

The scheme is due to be rolled out nationwide from next year.

Source: 24dash.com

Report as offensive or innapropriate Comment by Guest  20th August 2010
outragous mps and councilors claiming for perthetic items wont help the tax payer.shhhh lets change the subject we will kick arse the poor.

Report as offensive or innapropriate Comment by beekeeper ( member )  17th August 2010
the people of britain have paid over 30 billion to bail out the city gamblers,now the blame is being transfered to to poorest in society

Report as offensive or innapropriate Comment by Guest  17th August 2010
It's too easy to get signed off and doctors are afriad to say no in case it backfires on them. Genuinely ill people should be cared for, scroungers and dole bunnies should not

Report as offensive or innapropriate Comment by Guest  17th August 2010
lest you forget these people have been signed off by doctors, whether you like that or not. this is nothing more than a witch hunt to deflect attention away from the biggest heist in history

Report as offensive or innapropriate Comment by Guest  16th August 2010
about time

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