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Work and pensions secretary (of the Blair administration) announces plans to get tough on “scroungers” by retesting everyone on Incapacity Benefit through the new Work Capability Assessment.

What: James Purnell, Peter Hain’s successor as work and pensions secretary, tells the Liverpool Echo: “People who scrounge from the system take money away from legitimate [IB] claimants. Clearly we want to stop that.”

Why significant: Purnell was talking here about eventually retesting everyone on Incapacity Benefit through the new Work Capability Assessment – to be introduced for new claimants in October 2008. A further high-profile example of so-called benefit scrounger rhetoric from the highest levels of government.

Citations

'Get-tough tests face the sick on benefit', Hunt, 2008