Half a million people to lose disability benefits as Government goes ahead with benefits reform.

Work and Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, has revealed he is still going ahead with plans to reform disability benefits.

The move will mean over two million claimants being reassessed over the next four years.

The number of claimants has risen by 30 per cent in recent years, with the total cost of £13bn a year now outstripping unemployment benefit.

Under the plans, disability benefit will be replaced by a simpler ‘more focussed’ allowance and only those who are medically assessed as genuinely needing support will qualify.

The scheme will cut benefit payments by £2.24bn annually – with a half a million people losing benefits.

The Department of Work and Pensions plans to replace Disability Living Allowance (DLA) with a new benefit called Personal Independence Payment (Pip) which will have tighter criteria.

Liam Byrne MP, Labour's Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, said: "This government has approached the vital reform of disability benefits with a mix of contempt and carelessness.

He added: “Meanwhile, his department is getting wrong nearly half of disabled peoples' requests for help and his Work Programme is totally failing to offer disabled people a thing.

"If Iain Duncan Smith dropped the bluster of yet another relaunch and actually tried running his department properly we might make some progress."

Shaun Williams, director of corporate affairs at Leonard Cheshire Disability is extremely concerned about the plans.

He said: “Disabled people are already twice as likely as non-disabled people to live in poverty, and Disability Living Allowance is the crucial benefit that helps to cover their additional costs. Cutting spending by £2.24bn will inevitably mean that more disabled people will lose out on vital support and find themselves trapped in poverty.

“We are not opposed to improving the structure of benefits, but this has to be based on clear evidence about needs, and not on just saving money. It is also important that this debate is based on facts and not on myths. For example, the amount of money lost through fraud on DLA is actually very low at just 0.5 per cent - this is much less than the amount lost through official error.”

He fears the changes could force “more and more disabled people into poverty”.

Disability Living Allowance can be claimed by people with a physical or mental disability.

The new eligibility criteria for the new benefit will be announced in the Autumn.