More than 21,000 drug addicts and alcoholics have been claiming sickness benefits for longer than 10 years, it has been disclosed.

The taxpayer-funded handouts form part of the £7 billion a year paid in incapacity benefit. New figures from the Department for Work and Pensions show that 80,000 people are claiming incapacity benefit for being an alcoholic, a drug addict or too obese to work. Of these, 12,000 alcoholics and 9,200 drug addicts have been drawing the benefit for more than a decade at a cost estimated at around £1 billion. Each claimant has been able to claim an average £4,700 a year.
Thousands of others can claim for conditions such as headaches, acne, coughs and eating disorders. Short-term IB is £69 a week for the first 28 weeks, from weeks 29-52 at £81 a week with longer-term IB, paid after a year, £91.40 a week.
Chris Grayling, the employment minister, said: “It’s not fair on anyone for this situation to continue. Far from being the safety net it should be the benefits system has trapped thousands in a cycle of addiction and welfare dependency with no prospect of getting back to work.
“We are putting an end to this, we won’t allow people to be left on benefits and forgotten about, that’s why we have already started reassessing everyone on incapacity benefit [IB] and will support people with addictions to help them back into work.”
Ministers are angry that claimants have been left on IB, with the state washing its hands of responsibility to get them over their addictions and into work. Under plans from the Department for Work and Pensions, everyone on IB will be reassessed to see whether they are capable of some work, and what help they might need to return to employment.
The tests began this month. Assessors will determine whether people on IB can start looking for work straight away or if they will initially need the employment and support allowance. Mr Grayling said 10,000 people a week will be asked to take part to look at “what they can do, and what they can’t do”.
He said those with “complex barriers” will be helped through the new Work Programme, which begins this summer. It has been described by Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, as the biggest “welfare to work” programme attempted in Britain. Private and voluntary sector organisations will be asked to get people back to work, with rewards for their success rates.