Sickness benefit bills to be cut

Controversial plans to slash Britain's £7billion sickness benefit bills will be unveiled by Tony Blair next week.

He will seek to put his personal stamp on a new "war on welfare" with proposals to impose strict time limits on payment of incapacity benefit and other state aid to those claiming to be too ill to work.

In a hastily arranged speech, he is expected to raise the idea of scrapping the current system that allows those with incapacity benefit to be given more money the longer they receive it.

Whitehall sources say he will instead propose ending the benefit payments after six months and switching recipients to income support, which pays less.

Since Labour came to power, the total welfare bill has soared from ?92billion to ?136billion. The number of people on means-tested benefit has gone up from 26 per cent to 40 per cent.