To anyone, including the author, who sees IB as a reward, try going from your present salary is to the median level of I B, with the same bills to pay at the end of the month, then tell me its a gravy train! And essential prescriptions arent free either.
Go on, I try it, I dare you!
BG

Bill Glanvill, Horsham, W Sussex

Every job that Labour has 'created' is at subsistence level wages and that is the trouble Mr Field. Good jobs with fair wages have all but disappeared and been replaced with Mcjobs. Who can live on the kind of money that these jobs pay? Until low wages are addressed we will keep the great unwashed

judy, Liverpool, England

Coming slump and demographics will force us to ration benefits more tightly. Structure should be to pay for housing, heating, food needs (vouchers) kids nursery (vouch.) only basics. No fags, no booze, no cars, no SKY, no living in Spain . Earning from work allows you the choice to buy luxuries

Peter, London,

Stop complaining about employers - people seem to feel that they are owed a living, that they should be paid for the amount of time they spend at work. Get real - your salary should be based on the value you add to the company, not for clocking on an extra 30 minutes each day yet doing nothing.

Gordon Greenwich, Greenwich,

Soundest evidence for evolution. Provide a niche and you soon have new species adapted to survive, milking every penny, exploiting every loop hole.
Many of these people would not exist without the state and serve no other purpose except to spend its money.

ged, manchester,

Well said, Frank. Would you be willing to work alongside David Willetts and IDS in an incoming Tory government to put these proposals into action?

After 11 years of dithering, we might actually start making headway.

Dave, Redditch, England

Or simply stop paying benefits unless people can prove they need them - if that means a weekly or even daily check so be it. If it's easier to go to work than claim benefits people will work. I keep being told how able the disabled are so this shouldn't cause any problem either.

Doug Bates, St. Albans,

I know a man 44 unemployed 4 years who would gladly do a job picking up litter but he cant get one - has some learning difficulties but never diagnosed or documented so never gets any help..homeless, got bed bugs in ropey hotel and has never claimed dole living off savings dwindling fast.....

muvva, Cambs, uk

a perverse incensitivity would be to pay someone incapable of work the same as someone who cant be bothered to work.

What they should do, is pay anyone setting up a business the same rate as IB for the first 6 months of the business. this will encourage entrepreneruship and actually create jos.

will, grimsby, uk

Rubbish! Its like saying Barclays Bank should run the corporate tax system!

Billum, Edmonton,

As an ex-employee of the DSS/BA/DWP then believe me this is political. The Tories wanted unemployment down so we pushed people off the dole and onto incap. Calamity wants folk off incap so we'll shuffle 'em back onto the dole. No doubt Dave will want unemployment down, so we'll go back to incap.....

Tony Butler, London,

Good idea but won't work. I'm a DWP fraud officer. Recently caught an incap claimant working as a personal trainer(!), hauled him in to the office but couldn't stop his benefits because we'd lost his medical file.

TB, London,

Frank, as usual, talks a lot of sense. But can the reality of finding work for the 'anti work' ever be easy? So many decent jobs require an ever deeper intelligence, of the thoughtful and articulate. EU laws need ever more' certificates'. And are there enough 'mature' trainers?

David Vinter,, Louth, Lincs,, UK.

The fundamental problem for genuine claimants is that the NHS does not have the capacity to work with those who need to be supported back to work. A civil servant CANNOT guide or support a person in recovery from a psychological disorder back to work and the NHS just will not do it, leaving a gap.

Maureen, London,

If you are on jobseekers allowance you have to apply for at least 4 jobs a week.Now do the math.4times52 times1500000equals the jobless looking for 312 million jobs a year.Insane or what?I believe computers should do the looking and stop wasting the time of the drinking classes.

G Irvine, glasgow, uk

This is another reform of a public sector institution that will fail. Benefits must be time limited. Without this people will 'play the system'. The Government refuses to time limit. Why? Because it wants to play 'smoke and mirrors'. Typical Labour - talk tough but don't actually do anything.

Chris, Reigate, uk

Sir there are many people with serious health problems who attend numerous consultation meetings which are Government Directives we are unable to work but we volunteer our life experiences to identify problems and find solutions but they dont listen to us just consult Mr Freud who has no experience

Paul Davidson, Gateshead, England

Make all benefits time bound e.g. - a maximum of 8 years benefits from the age of 18-65 with it split roughly 2 years 18-28, 29-39, 40-50 and 51-65. When this 2 years runs out you are presented with a bill for you benfits and told you have to work the bill off with voluntary work or get a job

David, london, england

The problem lies with doctors. They will routinely sign people off for a year with 'depression' or other nebulous conditions rather than do their job and tell the patient there is nothing wrong with them. This starts the incapacity bandwagon rolling. Merthyr Tydfil's doctors figures be interesting.

Tony, Bristol, England

I cannot believe that 2.7m people in this country are so ill that they cannot work. There must be something radically wrong with this figure or with the population of this country or with the doctors who can be fooled so easily. Assume a working pop of 33m, that's approx 1 in 10 on incap.benefits!

Kevin Straw, Leicester,

Do not penalise the true beneficiarys of incapacity benifit, as in my experince people who do have a disabilty try their hardest to find work to suit their abilities these people should be supported! It is the scroungers that get a signed off that should be clamped down on!

Dave Farmer, Broxbourne, England

<<<Jonathan Bryce, if you tried to create a flat payment and had to include housing benefit, you would need an income tax rate of 64%. Thus, little incentive to work. >>>from Roger Thornhill

So this is what we are all paying in reality then? If not more.

Jen, wirral,

When, under previous (Conservative) administrations it was mooted that the long term unemployed could be ASKED to do simple tasks, eg cleaning up litter, the howls of derision from the Labour Party (front and backbenchers alike) could be heard on the Moon. How times change.

Anil Chatterjee, Manchester,

This proposal fails to address the central problem. Those on IB are generally unskilled / less skilled people with low earnings capacity. If they take an (insecure, low paid) job, the combination of tax, NI, fares, and withdrawal of housing & council tax benefits, ensures they are worse off.

Jerome Healy, london, UK

Sir with respect there is only talk of financial dependancy and no talk of Healthcare dependency that is those of us who have serous health conditions who depend on sometimes non existent care or provision its about time we had a fair voice ask the experts who suffer so much stigma abuse PD

Paul Davidson, Gateshead, England

Mr Field has missed an important part of the equation: the attitude of employers.
Many people on Incapacity Benefit face prejudice and ignorance from employers who need training in how to facilitate the employment of those with chronic health problems. This is critical to the success a new plan.

Daniel, Hereford, England

Sir its I endured over 40 years without diognosis of 2 serious conditions without diognosis left untreated made my health worse the whole system let me down I had to fight for diognosis so I could get proper treatment not benefit however I cant get all the help I need stigmatising costs lives

Paul Davidson, Gateshead, England

Jonathan Bryce, if you tried to create a flat payment and had to include housing benefit, you would need an income tax rate of 64%. Thus, little incentive to work.

FF exposes real flaws in the plan (private Cos) and suggests a less bad solution - local expertise and budgets.

Roger Thornhill, London, UK

Those who are genuinely incapacitated should have no fears of losing out under any scheme with ANY political party. Those who want to find work and move on should be rewarded. The lying/cheating (playing golf etc when supposedly 'incapacitated') must be routed out and assets seized to pay it back.

karen, oxford, uk

"a bouyant economy that has created more than three million additional jobs, the total out of work has fallen only from 5.7 million to 5.4 million."
So what of the other 2.7 million jobs? Presumably most have gone to immigrants willing to work for low wages.

David Steel, Edinburgh,

All of this navel gazing about benefits is only of benefit if anyone has the guts to implement new ideas. What's the betting that it will prove impossible because of the 'game playing' FF mentions above? There are some able-bodied people who can only be persuaded to work by the threat of starvation.

Colin, shrewsbury,

Why doesn't anyone listen to Frank Field? My colleague who is a welfare benefits adviser at CAB said to me this morning that she actually had a genuine IB claimant and how refreshing it was after the majority who will go to any lengths not to find work.

Harry, Chichester,

Suppose I'm ordered to go on a Workfare placement.

Suppose I give the DWP a quote of £8 an hour before starting.

Suppose I bill them at the end of the Workfare term.

If they don't pay, then suppose I sue on the contract?

Michael Petek, Brighton, UK

Are these measures stolen from the Tory Party or are they a Labour idea ? That is more important to me than whether they will work or not !!! Afterall this Gov't will be dead in the water after 2010.

ian payne, walsall,

Can I suggest an even more radical solution? Pay the benefits to everyone, and claw the money back by abolishing the personal allowance, all the various complicated tax credits available and adjust the basic rate tax band as required. This would remove the 100% effective tax rate to the poorest.

Jonathan Bryce, Reading, Berkshire

Allow long-term claimants to keep receiving benefits for a year after they get a job, so they can earn more than their colleague who has always worked and never claimed any money from the state. And FF says the current system has "perverse incentives"...

DS, London,