Shipley MP Philip Davies has demanded to know why the number of people claiming incapacity benefit has risen by more than a million in ten years.
He told the Commons yesterday that the number of people on incapacity benefit for five years or more had risen from 67,000 in 1997 to 1.5m in 2007.
He called on Pensions Minister Jim Murphy to set out what the Government is doing to address the problem and how it "got itself into this mess in the first place".
Mr Murphy criticised Mr Davies for his "tone" which he said conflicted the Tory frontbench view. He said: "We have sought to build a consensus on this important issue. The fact is that after two decades in remarkable rises, we now in three years have sustained falls. Nevertheless we still have to go further."
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