Govt welfare reform plans due

Incapacity benefit is to be abolished under the latest shakeup of Britain's welfare system.

The welfare green paper is due out later today and is being played up as a revolutionary series of changes by senior ministers.

An effectively temporary employment support allowance will replace incapacity benefit from 2013, while those who are jobless for over a year will be expected to undertake four weeks of community work.

Those who remain unemployed after two years will be expected to enter into full-time work, which could include community work like litter-picking.

"Responsibility is right at the heart of the welfare state," work and pensions secretary said on BBC1's Andrew Marr show yesterday.

"Conditionality is the absolute ally of social justice… If people don't live up to that expectation then people could lose their benefits.

"We have a system now which isn't working for those people as well as it should. The scars which have been there for generations – we want to put them right."