GRANT Shapps, the Tory chairman, has been rebuked by the UK's official statistics authority for saying that nearly one million people on incapacity benefit (IB) had dropped their claims rather than face medical checks.
The actual number was 19,700.
Last night, Labour called on Mr Shapps to apologise for trying to mislead people.
Andrew Dilnot, the authority chairman, said the Tory chief appeared to have "conflated" figures for IB claimants being moved onto the new benefit, the employment and support allowance, with those for new applicants for the ESA who had not previously been in receipt of incapacity benefit.
He said that the figure of "nearly 900,000" in Mr Shapps's press release appeared to refer to the "cumulative total of 878,300 new claims for the ESA, which were closed before undergoing assessment in the period from October 2008 to May 2012".
Liam Byrne, the Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, called on Mr Shapps to apologise after the latest of a series of cases in which Tory ministers have been condemned for misusing statistics.
Last night, a Conservative spokesman said: "As Andrew Dilnot said, DWP research shows that an important reason why ESA claims in this sample were withdrawn or closed before they were fully assessed was because the person recovered and either returned to work, or claimed a benefit more appropriate to their situation."
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