DISABILITY groups accused the government today of seeking to penalise people who cannot work after ministers set out plans to dock benefits from claimants who refuse to take jobs offered to them.

Under the proposals, free prescriptions and legal aid will denied to benefit claimants deemed fit to work who do not seek employment.

The measure is a part of a £2.5 billion back-to-work plan that is supposed to help up more than one million claimants find and stay in employment.

Among those targeted are people with long-term health conditions and disabilities and the long-term unemployed.

Mandatory work placement trials will be introduced, meaning that claimants will be forced to accept a job or undertake work experience to improve their prospects. Those who fail to do so will be hit with “immediate sanction.”

Campaigners warned that the proposals would hit people who are unable to work.

National disability charity Sense demanded that the government scrap its “deeply flawed proposals” for changes to the assessment process.

Sense head of policy Sarah White said: “The fact these changes are again being floated ahead of next week’s Autumn Statement will cause huge anxiety for disabled people up and down the country.

“Tightening the work capability assessment would have a severe financial impact on disabled people, at a time when Sense’s new research has shown more than half of disabled people are already in debt because of the cost-of-living crisis.

“And while everyone should be able to work if they want to, if the assessment process is overhauled without any additional job-hunting support being put in place, then disabled people are just going to be put under more pressure to find work without having the help and equipment they need to do so.”

Ms White said that if the government was truly serious about getting more disabled people into work, it should abandon “headline-grabbing plans to penalise disabled people and instead invest in lasting change.”

Linda Burnip of Disabled People Against Cuts said: “These proposals would be hugely detrimental for disabled people and would worsen both people’s physical and mental health.

“The details so far are also very confusing and unclear, but coupled with the planned increasing sanctions regime, it could mean many disabled people will be pushed into complete destitution.”