By Jaimie Kaffash
26 April 2010
Conservative figures on the number of people with drug and alcohol dependency claiming Incapacity Benefits are ‘misleading’ and risk ‘playing politics’ with a highly sensitive issue, experts have said.
Figures obtained by the Tories show that the government has spent £4.8bn on sickness and disability payments for people with drug or alcohol addiction since 1997. They say that annual spending on this has almost doubled in the same period, from £243m to £447m. Furthermore, the number of people claiming Incapacity Benefits for drug and alcohol addiction is 16,500, a fourfold increase on 1997 levels.
Shadow work and pensions secretary Theresa May said: ‘These figures expose the true cost of Labour’s failure to tackle benefit dependency. Labour had the chance to think the unthinkable in 1997 but thanks to Gordon Brown welfare reform was shelved.
‘Minister after minister has talked tough on welfare reform but Labour’s failure to shake up the system and help the most vulnerable has left the taxpayer with a whopping bill to pick up.’
But Niamh Eastwood, head of legal services at the drug and alcohol service Release, told Public Finance that dependency was a symptom of wider mental health problems. Therefore, she added, she would ‘question whether the figures are correct’.
‘These figures could be misleading and you have to look at what the Conservatives’ purpose is in releasing them,’ she said. ‘It could give the message that the government is going easy on drug and alcohol misusers but we have to realise these are health issues. We have to ask whether a Conservative government would kick people who cannot work due to these problems off benefits.
‘The Conservatives are playing politics with this. Their comments seem to say a lot but when we look behind it, it says not a lot about how they are going to deal with the issue.’
Martin Barnes, chief executive of the Drugscope charity, pointed out that a dependency on drugs or alcohol ‘is not of itself sufficient to receive benefits’.
26 April 2010
Conservative figures on the number of people with drug and alcohol dependency claiming Incapacity Benefits are ‘misleading’ and risk ‘playing politics’ with a highly sensitive issue, experts have said.
Figures obtained by the Tories show that the government has spent £4.8bn on sickness and disability payments for people with drug or alcohol addiction since 1997. They say that annual spending on this has almost doubled in the same period, from £243m to £447m. Furthermore, the number of people claiming Incapacity Benefits for drug and alcohol addiction is 16,500, a fourfold increase on 1997 levels.
Shadow work and pensions secretary Theresa May said: ‘These figures expose the true cost of Labour’s failure to tackle benefit dependency. Labour had the chance to think the unthinkable in 1997 but thanks to Gordon Brown welfare reform was shelved.
‘Minister after minister has talked tough on welfare reform but Labour’s failure to shake up the system and help the most vulnerable has left the taxpayer with a whopping bill to pick up.’
But Niamh Eastwood, head of legal services at the drug and alcohol service Release, told Public Finance that dependency was a symptom of wider mental health problems. Therefore, she added, she would ‘question whether the figures are correct’.
‘These figures could be misleading and you have to look at what the Conservatives’ purpose is in releasing them,’ she said. ‘It could give the message that the government is going easy on drug and alcohol misusers but we have to realise these are health issues. We have to ask whether a Conservative government would kick people who cannot work due to these problems off benefits.
‘The Conservatives are playing politics with this. Their comments seem to say a lot but when we look behind it, it says not a lot about how they are going to deal with the issue.’
Martin Barnes, chief executive of the Drugscope charity, pointed out that a dependency on drugs or alcohol ‘is not of itself sufficient to receive benefits’.
