MORE than 4,000 people "on the sick" in Merseyside are addicted to drugs or alcohol or simply too obese to work, the Government claimed last night.

And many have been "trapped in a cycle of addiction and welfare dependency" for more than a decade, work minister Chris Grayling said.

Mr Grayling said the problem was finally being tackled through his controversial plans to put most incapacity benefit (IB) claimants through a tough new work test, to weed out those able to enter employment.

Those tests got under way this month, with letters already arriving through the doors of claimants summoning them to an assessment centre. Around 11,000 tests a month are planned nationwide.

But there have been growing protests that the new test is too harsh, failing to properly understand mental health problems and other "fluctuating conditions", for example. In trials, a staggering 40% of decisions were overturned on appeal, but only after the sick and disabled were put through the trauma of being told they must look for work.

People with terminal cancer and multiple sclerosis have been found fit to work. In Aberdeen, two terminally ill people died while awaiting their appeals.