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Heartless Iain Duncan Smith will today signal a fresh attack on disabled people’s vital benefits.

In a speech this morning the Tory welfare slasher will vow to target the main sickness benefits in his next round of cuts.

Labour MP Debbie Abrahams, a member of the Commons work and pensions committee, said: “Given IDS’s appalling track record, this is of real concern.

“I wouldn’t trust anything the man said.”

IDS will describe Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) as “fundamentally flawed” and make clear he plans to force more sick and disabled people off benefits and into work.

It comes ahead of the long-awaited publication of official stats this week showing how many people have died after being found ‘fit for work’ by hated Government contractor Atos.

And it follows revelations IDS’s shameless staff at the Department for Work and Pensions invented quotes from fictional characters supposedly delighted their ESA payments were cut.

“We know there remains a gap between the employment rate of disabled and non-disabled people,” Mr Duncan Smith will warn today.

“We want to ensure everyone has the opportunity to transform their lives for the better by getting into work.

The Work and Pensions Secretary has already slashed £7billion from working age benefits since 2010.

He has vowed to cut another £12billion during this Parliament.

George Osborne announced in June that people on ESA will lose £30-a-week in the latest round of cuts to encourage them back into work.

In his speech today IDS makes clear he wants to go much further and push thousands of people off ESA altogether.

“When ESA was introduced it was intended to be a short term benefit,” he will say.

“We need to look at the system and in particular the assessment we use for ESA.

(Image: Getty)

“I want to look at changing it... (to make it) better geared towards helping to get people prepared for and into what work they may be capable of, rather than parking them beyond work.”

But disability rights campaigners said the real problem is the miserable failure of IDS’s flagship Work Programme.

The scheme was supposed to help the long-term unemployed back into work – but studies found it was actually worse than doing nothing at all.

Liz Sayce, chief executive of Disability Rights UK, said: “The work programme has totally failed people on ESA.

“The figures for getting people on ESA into work are very poor. Some people do want to work, with the right kind of support.

“We would like to see radical changes to the work programme in which it was really tailored to individual needs. If there was investment in that, you might see greater numbers of sick and disabled going into work, and that would be great.”