PAYMENT of long-term sickness benefit is to become conditional on people taking advantage of government help aimed at getting them back to work, under reforms to be announced next month.

The Times has learnt that ministers are to risk the opposition of Labour MPs by introducing a “something-for-something” approach. The Government would provide more generous benefits and support to deal with illness and disabilities in return for a new obligation on people to try to work again. Incentives to stay on benefit will be removed.

The plan will be the centrepiece of a Green Paper on welfare reform to be presented by John Hutton, the Work and Pensions Secretary, at the end of next month. The aim is to take at least one million off incapacity benefit, and cut the £12 billion annual cost.

All new claimants would be required to abide by the new regime but advice and help would also be available to the 2.7 million who already claim and they would be expected to take advantage of this, though ministers insist that existing benefits will not be cut. People deemed incapable of ever working, a small proportion, will be urged to have their conditions assessed occasionally to see if working would be possible.

At the same time there will be a shake-up of the benefits structure to remove the inbuilt disincentives for people to return to work and, in another move that will alarm some Labour MPs, fresh moves designed to persuade lone parents to move into work.

At present, new invalidity benefit claimants receive £57.65 a week, but the benefit rises to £68.20 after six months and £76.45 after a year. For many that is seen as encouragement to stay on benefit because the alternative jobseekers’ allowance stands at £56.20 a week.

The graduated scale is now expected to be abolished for new claimants, although no one currently on benefit will have their payments cut, it is understood. There is likely to be a higher flat rate of benefit after someone has been initially assessed for eligibility.

The plans will be used by Tony Blair and Blairite ministers such as Mr Hutton as evidence that the Government has not run out of steam, even though some of the radical ideas, such as means-testing, have been dropped. Mr Hutton, writing in next month’s edition of the Progress magazine, hints at the ambitious changes when he promises proposals to “break down the remaining barriers people face in accessing work opportunities”. He says that the Government needs to help the many people with a health condition or disability who get trapped on the incapacity benefit system.

“There are of course many who genuinely cannot work and these people should feel secure that the state will support them. But 80 to 90 per cent in the early part of a claim for incapacity benefit expect to get back to work, so we cannot accept a system that can effectively write people off, diminishing their abilities and lessening their life chances,” he writes.

The Government will provide the means by which claimants can have their conditions assessed at regular intervals, help with dealing with their illnesses and disabilities, and advice on the kind of work that would be possible for them.

Continued payment of the benefit will be conditional on them showing they are at least trying to get back to work.

The Green Paper’s plans to extend the new deal for lone parents is certain to prove controversial. At present there is an obligation on single mothers with children of 14 or over to go for job interviews or consider training opportunities in order for them to continue receiving jobseekers’ allowance. It is understood that the White Paper will reduce the age of the child — possibly to 11 — at which that requirement comes into effect. It is also expected that lone parents will have to be interviewed more frequently to go on receiving their benefits.

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