Sick and disabled benefit claimants will face more frequent reassessments under a planned overhaul of the welfare system in a drive to save £1billion.
Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, will set out long-term reforms on Tuesday, alongside cuts totalling around £7billion and promises to spend £1billion or more to help the long-term sick back to work.
The package aims to cut the growing welfare bill and is expected to include more help and support for finding work, and the protection of payments to the most vulnerable. Most of the savings will come from making it harder to claim disability benefits.
But the move has faced opposition from within Labour ranks over concern for the potential impact on vulnerable claimants, with one MP telling Ms Kendall that she risked pushing disabled people “into destitution."
However, she pledged yesterday that “the most severely disabled” would not be affected by her reforms.
“We know that there will always be people who cannot work because of the nature of their disability or health condition, and those people will be protected,” she told MPs.