Campaigners welcome election defeats for DWP ministers, but frustration as key trio survive

Campaigners have welcomed election defeats for a series of former Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) ministers, while also expressing disappointment that three of the most unpopular figures from the last 14 years managed to survive the Labour landslide.

There was some satisfaction at the Conservative election losses, both from disabled activists and relatives of some of those who lost their lives through the actions of DWP, and policies introduced by former ministers.

But there was also frustration that Labour in-fighting allowed the survival of Iain Duncan Smith, who led DWP from 2010 to 2016 and is held responsible by many activists for the worst of the department’s actions during the austerity years.

He held onto his Chingford and Woodford Green seat with a little over 17,000 votes, after Labour’s Shama Tatler and independent Faiza Shaheen – who had been deselected as the Labour candidate just weeks earlier – both polled more than 12,000 votes.

It has also emerged that Chris Grayling, DWP’s employment minister from 2010 to 2012, who had already stood down as an MP, is to be awarded a life peerage, despite his key role in some of the most dangerous and damaging decisions of the coalition government.

Esther McVey – who served as minister for disabled people, employment minister and work and pensions secretary during the austerity years – won her Tatton seat by more than 1,000 votes, although she saw her share of the vote plunge by nearly 19 per cent.

And Mel Stride, work and pensions secretary until the election, won his Central Devon seat by just 61 votes.

He had been responsible for a string of damaging policies on disability benefits while leading the department.

Just weeks before the election, Disability News Service (DNS) revealed how two statements he had made about disability benefits had been found to be potentially misleading by the UK statistics regulator.

Among those who did lose their seats were Therese Coffey, work and pensions secretary from September 2019 to September 2022; Tom Pursglove, minister for disabled people from 2022 to 2023; and Justin Tomlinson, who served twice as minister for disabled people.

DNS revealed two years ago how DWP watered down key parts of a plan drawn up to prevent suicides and learn lessons from claimant deaths, while under Coffey’s leadership.

During her time as work and pensions secretary, Coffey was heavily criticised for her attitude to the families of benefit claimants whose deaths had been linked to her department’s actions, including refusing to meet them to discuss their concerns.

She was also criticised for preventing the release of key details from scores of secret reports into claimant deaths.

And there was repeated anger over her claims that her department had no statutory duty of care to benefit claimants, including those whose deaths were caused by her department.

There was also anger among many activists at the decision to make Coffey a dame for “political and public service”.

Other former DWP ministers defeated last week included Maria Miller, the first minister for disabled people under the Conservative-led coalition in 2010; and two other former disability ministers, Penny Mordaunt and Mark Harper.

Only last month, DNS reported how official DWP documents linked Mordaunt to a government cover-up of how a disabled man took his own life after being wrongly found fit for work.

Paula Peters, a member of the national steering group of Disabled People Against Cuts, said: “It was poetic justice to see some of the former secretaries of state for the DWP, ministers for disabled people and former employment ministers lose their seats as MP.

“However, it is with deep anger and distress that we note Therese Coffey has been awarded a damehood for her role in the Tory government via the dissolution honours list.

“This is a huge slap in the face to all the families who have lost loved ones as a result of the distress and harm the DWP have caused.

“It’s a kick in the teeth to disabled people across the UK who are living in terrible poverty as a result of the welfare reforms she presided over.

“We must demand this damehood be withdrawn without delay.”

She added: “There is a deep sense of anger that Iain Duncan Smith, Mel Stride and Esther McVey were re-elected to parliament.

“There is more deep anger that Mel Stride has been reappointed as shadow secretary of state for the DWP under outgoing former prime minister Rishi Sunak’s shadow cabinet.

“Our messages to both sides of parliament: we will continue to campaign and scrutinise policy, and hold ministers and MPs to account.”

Among those expressing relief at the end of 14 years of Conservative rule was Gill Thompson.

Her brother David Clapson, who had diabetes, died in July 2013 due to an acute lack of insulin, three weeks after having his jobseeker’s allowance (JSA) sanctioned.

Because he had no money, he couldn’t afford to pay for electricity that would have kept the fridge where he kept his insulin working, and he had also run out of food.

Four months after his death, McVey issued a press release in which she called for an end to the “something for nothing” culture and boasted of new figures which show JSA claimants had had their payments suspended 580,000 times in the nine months since “tougher rules” were introduced in October 2012.

Thompson, who has campaigned for more than a decade for justice for her brother and other DWP victims, said the election was “the best day ever” and that she felt that “now David can be put to rest”, although she said she would “always be supportive of the cause”.

She said: “I am glad Labour have won, but the biggest thing for me was to see this awful government out, and hopefully not to return, not easily anyway.

“An end to all this suffering, that’s all I ever wanted.”

Alison Burton, whose father-in-law Errol Graham starved to death after DWP wrongly stopped his benefits when he missed a work capability assessment, stayed up until the early hours of Friday to confirm that Coffey had lost.

Although Coffey was not in charge of DWP when he died, she was secretary of state for much of the time the family subsequently sought justice through the courts.

She has previously highlighted Coffey’s repeated failure to show sympathy for the families of those who had died, and her lack of action to address DWP’s part in those deaths.

Burton said she had been thinking of her father-in-law on election night, and of the damage done by Coffey.

She said: “I was determined to make sure that she lost her seat. It was one thing I wanted to see more than anything.

“Now she can’t do to another family what she did to mine.”

She added: “One thing I am damn sure of is I didn’t want the Conservatives in power.”

She said successive Conservative-led governments had “no excuses” for the continuing deaths of disabled benefit claimants, as there had been repeated warnings, including those from coroners.

She said: “They can’t step away from what they have done.”

Burton, who is disabled herself, said: “The Conservatives have created a hatred towards disabled people over the past decade among people who don’t have a disability.

“They have painted the impression in their minds that we are scrounging off their taxes.

“The Conservatives have created an awful lot of wrong and misleading information.”

And she promised that she was “not going to go away” just because there was a new government.

She said: “I don’t care who is in power. Many other families will do the same.

“We still need answers. We still need the truth and we still need justice.”

Joy Dove, whose daughter Jodey Whiting took her own life after her employment and support allowance was wrongly stopped for missing a work capability assessment, said she did not celebrate when former DWP ministers lost their seats.

But she said she was glad that Coffey was defeated because of how she attempted to prevent her family securing a second inquest into her daughter’s death.

She said: “I hope this new government grant us a public inquiry into all those who died because of the DWP.

“It’s about time we get justice and DWP are held to account.”

The Department, DNS editor John Pring’s book on DWP and how its actions led to countless deaths of disabled people in the post-2010 era, will be published by Pluto Press on 20 August. Visit TheDepartmentBook.com before publication for a 50 per cent discount 

Picture: (From left to right) Mel Stride, Esther McVey and Iain Duncan Smith

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