DWP warned benefit claimants are dying of starvation

The government must create a “compassionate” benefits system which does not “demonise people for needing social security support” to prevent further deaths of claimants, the Work and Pensions Select Committee chair has warned.

A recent report by the committee found that deaths of benefit claimants “could have been prevented” by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). 

Between 2023 and 2024, the government investigated 40 deaths of claimants – and since 2020, there have been at least 240 internal reviews into cases where there is allegation that the DWP’s actions may have contributed to a claimant’s death or serious harm.

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“People aren’t just dying of suicides. It’s starvation,” Debbie Abrahams, chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, told the Big Issue. “Errol Graham died of starvation when his social security support was stopped. 

“We know that there have been a number of deaths and serious harms, and not just a few – hundreds that the department is investigating. And we knew that this was likely to be just the tip of the iceberg.”

In 2020, the National Audit Office (NAO) published information on deaths by suicide of benefit claimants and found that the DWP had investigated 69 cases since 2014. 

But it claimed that it was “highly unlikely” the 69 cases was equal to the number of cases the department could have investigated, due to “inconsistencies” with how information from coroners was monitored.

Abrahams said she first became aware of the problem more than a decade ago, after the death of veteran David Clapson, who was sanctioned by the DWP. He was diabetic and could not afford electricity, so his fridge was not cold enough to keep his insulin active, and he died. 

“There are a number of other cases that I became aware of – Errol Graham, Philippa Day, Mark Wood,” Abrahams added. “This report was for the families and loved ones of people who have died. I’ve known so many of them now, and who still have real, vivid feelings and upset and hurt about what their loved ones went through.”

The Big Issue previously reported the death of Josh Smith, who took his own life amid fears that his disability benefits were going to be cut. His case was never investigated by the DWP.

MPs in the Work and Pensions Committee are calling for a statutory duty to be put on the DWP to safeguard benefit claimants. This would “put a legal obligation on the department to safeguard” benefit claimants, which it has ”never had before”.

“We don’t know the full scale of deaths,” Abrahams added. The committee wants the DWP to work with coroners and the chief medical adviser to understand the “real level of death” and to systematically record all cases and publish this information annually.

It recommends that there should be a requirement, as part of its duty to safeguard claimants, to undertake assessments of any new legislation or policy and consider the impact it might have on the health and wellbeing of benefit claimants.

Since the publication of the report, the committee has written to work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall demanding that the DWP “delay” the disability benefit cuts.

The letter calls on the minister to work with disabled people and their organisations and “immediately undertake an independent, comprehensive analysis of the impact of the proposed cuts”. 

“We need to have a system in our country that is compassionate and that doesn’t demonise people for needing social security support. The vast majority of people will do the right thing. They have worked all their life and acquired a disability or a long-term condition, and they need that help,” Abrahams told the Big Issue.

“I would hope that if it happened to you or I, there would be a system there that is compassionate, that sees the best in humanity. I’d like to see our social security be viewed in the same way as our NHS, flawed as all systems are because they’re provided by human beings, but it’s there for every one of us in our time of need, and that’s what I think it should be. It really upsets me when I see that isn’t happening.”

A DWP spokesperson said: “This government is committed to protecting the people who use our services and fixing the broken welfare system we inherited so it works for those who need it. 

“That’s why we are currently consulting on a new safeguarding approach, and our reforms will improve people’s lives and rebuild trust, by establishing an approach that genuinely supports vulnerable people.

“As we deliver our Plan for Change, we encourage people to have their voices heard through our consultation so we can build a safeguarding approach that works better for all.”

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