QUEEN'S SPEECH - INCAPACITY BENEFITS: ANOTHER potentially explosive new law is the plan to reform incapacity benefit. Ministers want to remove disincentives to work for the country's 2.7m sick and disabled.
Former Work and Pensions Secretary Alan Johnson said in February that he wants to remove the perverse incentive for those able to work again to stay on the Incapacity Benefit as it rises from just under £56-a-week to £74 after a year. The new system would give people a holding benefit the same as the £55-a-week Jobseekers' Allowance until they were assessed by a doctor.
The 20 per cent of claimants with the worst conditions would receive a new Disability and Sickness Allowance, worth more than the current incapacity rates.
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