MORE than 1,700 people in the south are receiving benefits because of drug and alcohol addiction.

The bill runs into millions of pounds a year.

Ministers have published the breakdown amid new criticism over their plans to subject all incapacity benefit claimants to tough ‘fit for work’ tests.

A Southampton charity said it was obvious that people who were unable to work would have to claim benefits.

Trevor Pickup, of The Society of St James, which works with drug and alcohol addicts, said: “Otherwise, they would starve to death, which is not government policy. The fact that we have a lot of people on benefits who have drug and alcohol problems is a sign of problems with the drug and alcohol policies of this country, not of problems with the benefits system.”

Addicts are not “exploiting” the benefits system, he said, because this was the mechanism put in place to support people unable to work.

In Southampton, the Isle of Wight and the Hampshire County Council areas 1,730 people were receiving either disability living allowance (DLA), incapacity benefit or employment support allowance (ESA) with drug or alcohol addiction as their main “disabling condition”, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said.

Southampton had 380 incapacity claimants, 180 on ESA and 120 receiving DLA because of drug or alcohol issues.

Across the country 20,000 people were listed as receiving benefits because of addictions.

The coalition’s reforms include replacing DLA with a new payment with tougher criteria.

All incapacity benefit claimants – of which there are around 25,000 across the south – are being subjected to tough physical tests to see whether they are capable of working.

There has been criticism that people are being judged fit to work by the automated tests, and yesterday Professor Malcolm Harrington, the man appointed to review the process, announced he was standing down.

A DWP spokeswoman said: “Reform of the broken incapacity benefit system is about saving lives rather than writing people off to a life on benefits.

The reassessment of 1.5 million people on incapacity benefit and the work capability assessment we use means we can take account of conditions that change over time. These figures show why we are right to reform the system.”