MINERS' leaders in Selby have reacted with fury after a government minister threw the sickness claims of thousands of former miners into doubt.

Work and Pensions Minister Malcolm Wicks stunned Labour MPs by suggesting that many miners had gone straight from working down the pits to receiving Incapacity Benefit for being unable to work.

In a Westminster debate on the economic plight of former mining communities, he declared: "It cannot be right that some people proudly marched down the pits on the last day before the pits closed and immediately were signed off ... into Incapacity Benefit."

With the Selby pit complex on the brink of closure, his remarks sparked a fierce response from National Union of Mineworkers' (NUM) officials.

Steve Kemp, a former Stillingfleet miner, who is now NUM national secretary, said the minister's comments at face value had accused miners of "defrauding the system".

He said the remarks were a "disgrace" and an insult to miners claiming from the state for diseases suffered as a consequence of working in the mining industry.

He said: "It beggars belief that a Labour politician should engage himself with such comments."

Mr Wicks made clear that he partly blamed the previous Tory government for encouraging ex-miners who could work to claim sickness benefits, in order to hide the true state of unemployment.

He quoted the founder of the post-1945 welfare state, William Beveridge, to warn that the "evil of idleness sadly still stalks the land".

But Riccall Mine NUM delegate Kevin Meloy said Mr Wicks's remarks were a "cheap shot", unworthy of a Labour minister.

Mr Meloy said: "The fact is that many miners end up with injuries and industrial diseases, contracted years ago when health and safety controls were not as rigorous as they are today.

"Pitmen suffering from Vibration White Finger, for example, will find it difficult to find work, and when a man becomes unemployable he has no choice but to go on benefits."

Updated: 11:59 Saturday, May 24, 2003