Labour’s shadow minister for disabled people has angered activists after failing to express concern about safeguarding flaws at the heart of the universal credit system, including a suicide linked by a coroner to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
Vicky Foxcroft made no mention of the coroner’s concerns about the safety of universal credit, or of a series of recent reports on the flawed universal credit system, in a statement likely to have originated in Labour’s press office.
A coroner warned work and pensions secretary Mel Stride earlier this month that he needed to act to prevent flaws in universal credit leading to further deaths, following the suicide of Kevin Gale, from Penrith, Cumbria, who had become overwhelmed by the application process.
Disability News Service (DNS) approached Foxcroft for a comment after Labour’s silence following this and other reports that have highlighted significant safeguarding concerns about the universal credit system and within jobcentres.
Among those stories were the coroner’s comments about the death of Kevin Gale, as well as a secret DWP report that revealed that the design of universal credit (UC) was “inadequate for vulnerable groups” and that some UC claimants were “not adequately supported”.
Foxcroft was also reminded that whistleblowers had told DNS how DWP safeguarding failures at an Oxford jobcentre had put the lives of benefit claimants at risk.
The whistleblowers also described how conditions at the jobcentre became so stressful that 15 members of a team of 23 work coaches quit within a 12-month period, with at least eight experiencing a significant collapse in their mental health following a sudden increase in workload in late 2021.
DNS had asked Foxcroft whether all this evidence – including the coroner’s warning – raised fresh concerns over the safety of universal credit and the government’s latest welfare reforms.
But the statement from Foxcroft made no reference to the suicide of Kevin Gale or to the serious safeguarding concerns about DWP.
Her statement failed to even mention universal credit.
Instead, she said: “Labour has been saying for a long time that the current flawed system, which has forced too many disabled people into desperate circumstances, needs to be reformed.
“A future Labour government will work with disabled people to carry out a comprehensive review of welfare and support so that the system works with other services to incentivise those who can work to find a job, whilst providing full support for those who can’t.
“Under Labour, people will be able to try work without fear of losing their income or having to be reassessed if the job doesn’t work out.
“We will combine these plans with our ambitious programme to drive down NHS waiting lists, transform mental health provision and introduce a new deal for workers.”
But her statement has caused anger and frustration at Labour’s latest betrayal of disabled people, particularly those within the social security system.
Kathy Bole, chair of Disability Labour, which is affiliated to the Labour party, said: “I am concerned that there has been nothing from Labour about the significant developments which have come to light with regard to the safety of the universal credit system and further safeguarding at a job centre.
“I don’t understand why it seems impossible for Labour to express any outrage about the deadly faults at the heart of universal credit.”
She added: “There should be outrage about the lack of safeguarding and deaths related to universal credit.
“The lack of reaction is a bad look for Labour when they are wanting to show voters that they are the party of the people and fit for government.
“If they don’t speak out when these things come to light, how can disabled people and their families trust them to change things and to save more people from dying?
“We need Labour to speak out and challenge the government.
“They also need to show the families of those who died some compassion and call for action on the safeguarding issues.”
Bob Ellard, a member of the national steering group of Disabled People Against Cuts, said: “Labour obviously couldn’t give a damn about safeguarding our lives from the evils of universal credit.
“This shouldn’t be a surprise from the party that inflicted the work capability assessment on us in 2008.
“Labour have a long tradition of not giving a shit about disabled people.”
And John McArdle, co-founder of Black Triangle, said: “Labour should be hammering the Tories on the litany of deaths and avoidable harm that the Tories have caused to disabled people and continue to cause.
“The fact that they are silent on the issue just makes them complicit in the harm and leaves disabled people thinking that the Labour party actually supports everything the Tories are doing.
“It’s high time that they stood up proudly in defence of disability rights and stopped their shameful silence.”
Meanwhile, the Commons public accounts committee has warned that the government could deliver a new service for claimants of disability benefits without important improvements to claimants’ experience of the system.
DWP began its much-delayed Health Transformation Programme more than five years ago, and aims to digitalise the benefits process, allow applications to be made online and improve the way benefit claims are handled.
The department plans to roll out its new Health Assessment Service for managing assessments and claims for personal independence payment by 2029.
But in a new report, the committee warns that “the greatest risk to this work is that the DWP focuses exclusively on the delivery of a new digitalised service, without achieving the important transformational change for the experience of claimants”.
The MPs said DWP was more likely to improve the service “if it works with disabled people and their representative bodies”, but the report raises concerns that DWP has “not done enough to communicate and engage with the public and claimants about what they can expect from the revised service”.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, a Conservative MP and the committee’s deputy chair, said: “Disability benefits are designed to help people both with extra living costs and with everyday life.
“The government’s work to reform the complicated, stressful and lengthy application process is hugely significant for the approximately 3.9 million claimants, their relatives and advocates.
“These reforms will only be successful if they truly transform service users’ experience, rather than simply delivering the bells and whistles of a new digital platform.”
Picture: Vicky Foxcroft (left) and Kathy Bole at this year’s Labour party conference in Liverpool
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