A MAJOR shake-up of the benefits system could force disabled people into low-paid menial jobs, or on to the streets, a disability campaigner fears.

The radical plans to get hundreds of thousands of people off benefits and into work were launched yesterday.

Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell is proposing scrapping incapacity benefit and income support by 2013 and replacing them with two more simplified systems of benefits.

Employment Support Allowance will be available for those with medical problems which limit their ability to work and JobSeekers’ Allowance for those who are fit to work.

Ron Alexander, chief officer of Dial Southend, said: “What worries me is it will end up putting more people on the street. Many of those people don’t really know if they have the capacity to work.

“For some disabled people, especially those with mental illness, unless they have constant supervision, they won’t be able to work. The reality is many will do menial tasks no-one else wants to do and get paid a pittance. Where’s the job satisfaction in that?”

Benefits claimants will have medical tests to determine their capacity for employment.

Only full-time carers and disabled people “with the greatest needs” will be exempt from finding work.

Lone parents with children aged seven or over will be expected to seek work while unemployed drug addicts who lie to get benefits could face jail. The long-term unemployed will face US-style work for dole programmes in return for state support.

Basildon’s Labour MP, Angela Smith, said it did not mean people would be forced into jobs. She said: “That’s not the intention of the reforms at all. I know that people with mental illness find it particularly hard to get back to work so it’s about giving them the support they need.”

Castle Point’s MP, Bob Spink, also welcomed the initiative. He said: “That’s good for the individual and good for our economy. There are many people who don’t work and should be working.”

But Rayleigh’s Tory MP Mark Francois said: “This Government has been in power for over ten years and suddenly, now, when they’re way behind in the opinion polls, they’re talking about welfare reforms.”