Iain Duncan Smith, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, has vowed to press ahead with the previous Labour government's plan to review the work capability of all 2.5 million people claiming incapacity benefit.
It will form part of what the Government is calling, "a radical welfare reform programme designed to tackle entrenched poverty and end the curse of intergenerational worklessness."
Boasting the largest departmental budget, the comments suggest the DWP is set for significant cuts as efforts to decrease the public spending black hole are intensified.
This could mean more people being declined long-term sickness benefits and instead forced onto jobseekers allowance, as shown by a BBC Scotland report.
Its article was highly critical of the stricter employment and support allowance (ESA) that replaced incapacity benefit in 2008, and revealed that rates of application rejection were even higher than first intended.
These results are not unexpected, as previously mentioned by COVER, the ESA has come in for significant criticism since its implementation for new applicants.
In making the announcement, Duncan Smith admitted that both Tory and Labour governments have used incapacity benefit to keep jobless figures down.
"Instead of helping, a deeply unfair benefits system too often writes people off," he said.
"The proportion of people parked on inactive benefits has almost tripled in the past 30 years to 41% of the inactive working age population. Some of these people haven't been employed for years," he added.
Duncan Smith also cited previous Work and Pensions Secretary John Hutton's exclamation that "nine out of 10 people who came on to incapacity benefit expect to get back into work. Yet if you have been on incapacity benefit for more than two years, you are more likely to retire or die than ever get another job."
