SOME disabled people will be stripped of benefits altogether under a fresh crackdown on the long-term sick, it emerged yesterday.

The Government’s plan to slap a 12-month time limit for one million people on sickness benefits and introduce means-testing will remove all cash help from some of the “least disabled”.

Anyone whose partner earns more than £150 a week, or who has £16,000 in savings, will lose all benefit unless they actively look for work.

Even those moving from Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) – the replacement for Incapacity Benefit (IB) - onto Job Seekers’ Allowance (JSA) will lose up to £40 a week.

The shake-up is expected to hit about 60,000 people across the North-East and North Yorkshire, about half the number who claim IB.

Before then, about a further 30,000 IB claimants across the region will have been moved onto JSA. They are expected to fail a tougher work test to be introduced next year, cutting their weekly benefit from £91.40 to as little as £51.85.

Last night, the Department for Work and Pensions acknowledged that some disabled people judged not currently fit to work would lose all benefit.

A spokesman said: “They will be given intensive support to help them go back to work.”

He stressed that about 500,000 of the most disabled people – those on a higher, support group rate of ESA – will not be affected by the changes, to be introduced next year.

Nevertheless, Richard Hawkes, chief executive of disability charity Scope, accused ministers of targeting those on sickness benefits, saying: “They will have one year to get a job and that will be it.”

Scope was also alarmed about a second benefit cut – the decision to remove the mobility component in disability living allowance for people in residential care.

This is the money that helps disabled people visit the shops or their families, prompting criticism that those with no family or friends nearby would become prisoners in their care homes.

Mr Hawkes said: “To have members of the Government cheering an announcement that will result in people living in poverty, or staying in their home more, I find really concerning.”

But Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith denied that disabled people would be “trapped at home”, insisting: “Their care homes can provide mobility for them.”