Rebecca Duffett reports

Rebecca Duffett

Last month it was revealed that more than 80,000 drug addicts, alcoholics and obese people are claiming incapacity benefits in the UK, with over a quarter of those having done so for more than 10 years.

At the start of this year the government started reassessing every incapacity benefit claimant and putting all new applicants onto the new employment and support allowance instead.

The figures were released to try and justify this seemingly controversial action; but how did we get into this situation that has been described by the employment minister as a cycle of welfare dependency? Have the government really left people for dead as David Cameron said himself? Stephen Timms, Shadow Employment Minister, spoke into the root of this issue, "Quite a lot of people went onto incapacity benefit because the previous Conservative Government gave incentives to Job Centres to shift people from unemployment benefit onto incapacity benefit. That was really when the problem started."

There are also concerns that there could be some genuine claimants who've been counted in these latest figures. Tam Fry from the National Obesity Forum believes that, "About 20% do deserve incapacity benefit because they have a problem which is either genetically or medically meaning that they're going to be fat. I think real care has to be paid for those situations."

In this complex issue, one problem has been finding suitable employment with many people justifying their need for long term benefits. Family doctor Sarah Jarvis explained more, "The big issue I think in the past has been people who couldn't do a physical and manual job; the argument was, 'well, they can't work because that's all they're trained for'.

Employment Minister Chris Grayling summed up how we got into today's situation, "For 10 years or more they've been left sitting on the sidelines with nobody asking the question, what could you do differently; could we help you back into the workplace; could we help you overcome the issues you face? That is now changing."

People aren't convinced things are changing though. As of January this year no more incapacity claims have been accepted. Instead people have to apply for a new employment and support allowance. Rosie Murray has just started receiving this after struggling to find work on normal Jobseekers. Incapacity benefit ranged from £70 a week to nearly £95 a week for long term claimants. Rosie currently receives just £55 a week. She suffers from a number of medical conditions, but is determined to do all she can to find work with minimal benefits. Her move onto this new allowance is meant to mean that she'd be targeted for more suitable work but with less input from her. However she has her doubts about assessing claimants for benefits initially just from application forms, but concedes that, "It does erk me that people who do have self-inflicted stuff do get benefits".

Former Government drugs advisor Professor David Nutt wants to blow away the idea that people claim benefits through self-infliction by choice, "I can tell you none of them want to be addicted. They all want to get off the drug, off the alcohol and they want to get back to work".

Ian Samuel runs The Gilead Foundation, a charity helping to rehabilitate those with various addictions. He believes you have to look at the route causes of addictions to really be able to resolve the problem, "It's inevitable that people are always going to use things like drugs and alcohol because people find that drugs and alcohol anesthetise pain and fear. So whenever somebody's got a big problem going on and they know that drugs and alcohol can help that, then they'll take them. Then of course eventually it develops into addiction. At least 95% of the students we take, their problems all stem from broken relationships in families. Family does work and when the family breaks down it messes up people's lives individually, then ultimately you've got the problem with all the addictions and benefits and things like that".

"The ones that have already got families, it's almost too late as we won't be able to change those values in the home. But for young children in the primary schools and teenagers who are going to grow up and start their own families, then I think they would be willing to listen. I think until those values are returned into school education and taught quite strongly, we're going to continue to have a problem. The issue is will society go for it? If we just reduce benefits, it might help some people, but I think the crime rate would go up."

Reviewing everyone currently on incapacity benefit will take until 2014. This long process of looking at whether those who're claiming up to £95 a week because of their inability to work is not going to be simple. Yet there seems to be agreement that people need to be helped to come off drugs and alcohol and not just left on the sidelines claiming benefits. As Ian suggested, based on their statistics, it would also be a positive approach to focus on the root causes of addiction, namely the breakdown of family in the UK; despite it being a potentially unpopular direction.