3 January 2006 - John Hutton highlights clear link between benefit dependency and deprivation
New figures released today by John Hutton , Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, show a clear link between high numbers of people claiming incapacity benefit and deprivation.
John Hutton has written to MPs, in the 100 areas with the highest number of claimants, ahead of planned reform of the welfare state aimed at getting people back to work and improving the life chances of their constituents.
The research shows that as many as half of the most severe pockets of deprivation in England, Wales and Scotland are contained within the hundred constituencies that have the largest numbers of incapacity benefit claimants. People who live in these 100 constituencies are five times more likely to live in pockets of severe deprivation than those in the rest of the country.
Thirty-two of the top hundred constituencies are in the North West of England, with many in and around Manchester and Liverpool. Scotland has 20 of the top 100, with many concentrated in the West of Scotland around Glasgow, Wales and the South East, including London, have 10 each.
In his letter Mr Hutton:
“The clear link between benefit dependency and hardship shown in the figures I am releasing today is striking.
“ I do not believe we should accept a system that perpetuates hardship and denies people the opportunity to better their lives by accessing the world of work. The vast majority of people who start receiving incapacity benefit want to go back into work, but the system currently provides them with little help in doing so.
“ The welfare reform green paper will break down the remaining barriers people face when seeking to enter the world of work.
“ A key part of that will be replacing incapacity benefit with a new system that gives genuine protection to people who truly cannot work, but properly assesses what people are able to do and gives them increased support to build up that level of capacity. The changes will seek to match rights with responsibilities in the way that has been so successful with the New Deal.”
Mr Hutton’s constituency, Barrow and Furness, is included in the top 100 and he wrote of his own experience:
“ I know that in my own constituency, where there are 6,800 people on IB, families and communities suffer when people get stuck on benefits.
In households where nobody goes to work, both money and self esteem can be in short supply. This can mean a lack of positive role models and result in generation after generation getting stuck in the benefits trap. Getting people onto incapacity benefit – and its predecessors invalidity benefit and sickness benefit – was seen as a way to mask soaring levels of unemployment. Our constituencies have paid a heavy price for this policy failure over the years.”
Notes to Editors
- On average, a third of people in the 100 constituencies with the highest number of incapacity benefit claimants, are living among the most severe pockets of deprivation in Britain. For the rest of the constituencies in England, Scotland and Wales, the average number of people living in severely deprived areas is only 5.9 per cent. People who live in the 100 constituencies with the highest numbers of IB claimants are therefore five times more likely to live in pockets of severe deprivation than those in the rest of the country.
- These most severely deprived areas are defined as those ranked among the 10 per cent most deprived areas in Britain, based on a national measurement (called the multiple deprivation index) which takes into account a range of different dimensions of deprivation, including income, health, barriers to services and crime.
- There are 5,797,319 people living in the 10% of most deprived areas in Britain. So 2,967,762 living in these 100 constituencies represent just over half of this group.
- The caseload
figures are for May 05 and are rounded to the nearest hundred (26KB)
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