Disabled MP asks health and safety watchdog why it has never investigated DWP’s links to hundreds of deaths

The boss of the health and safety watchdog has been asked by a disabled MP why her organisation has never investigated the government’s “fitness for work” test, even though it was linked to nearly 600 suicides in less than three years.

Sarah Albon, chief executive of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), was giving evidence yesterday (Wednesday) to the Commons work and pensions committee on her organisation’s work.

HSE is sponsored as a public body by the Department for Work and Pensions, which is responsible for the work capability assessment (WCA).

Its work focuses on preventing work-related death, injury and ill health and it claims to be “dedicated to protecting people and places, and helping everyone lead safer and healthier lives” while also working “to ensure people feel safe where they live, where they work and in their environment”.

This year, HSE is celebrating its 50^th anniversary, but the regulator has never investigated the safety of DWP – and particularly its assessment processes – over its connection with countless deaths of disabled benefit claimants over the last 15 years.

Disability News Service (DNS) raised this concern last week with Steve Darling, a disabled MP, the Liberal Democrat work and pensions spokesperson, and a member of the work and pensions committee.

At the end of yesterday’s evidence session with HSE, Darling pointed to academic research from 2015 which found that a programme to reassess people on incapacity benefit through the work capability assessment was linked to 590 suicides in just three years.

He asked Albon to explain why HSE had never “explored that dynamic”.

She replied: “I must say that 2015 pre-dates my tenure in the HSE…”

But Darling told her: “The buck still stops with you today.”

She said: “I was going on to say that it was the first time I had heard that in such a stark way, and I need to sort of reflect further and come back to you in detail and would be very happy to arrange a meeting to talk through in detail about your concern in that area.”

Albon was sitting next to Sarah Newton, HSE’s chair, who was DWP’s minister for disabled people at a time when disabled people’s deaths were continuing to be linked closely to the department’s actions.

Among those who died while Newton was disability minister were Errol Graham, who starved to death after DWP wrongly stopped his employment and support allowance when he missed a WCA he was too unwell to attend; and Roy Curtis, who took his own life six days after being asked to attend a face-to-face WCA, despite DWP being repeatedly warned that its actions had made him suicidal.

In response to a freedom of information request submitted by DNS in September 2020, DWP has previously confirmed that it was required by HSE to put arrangements in place to control health and safety risks.

This included “assessments of the risks to employees, contractors, customers, partners, and any other people who could be affected by your activities”.

DWP later refused to release up-to-date risk assessments of its headquarters, two jobcentres, and a universal credit service centre, as it said this could provide details of safety and security measures, which could place staff and visitors “in harm’s way”.

The Department: How a Violent Government Bureaucracy Killed Hundreds and Hid the Evidence, DNS editor John Pring’s book on the years of deaths linked to DWP, is published by Pluto Press

Picture: Steve Darling (right), Sarah Newton (left) and Sarah Albon (second from left)

A note from the editor:

Please consider making a voluntary financial contribution to support the work of DNS and allow it to continue producing independent, carefully-researched news stories that focus on the lives and rights of disabled people and their user-led organisations.

Please do not contribute if you cannot afford to do so, and please note that DNS is not a charity. It is run and owned by disabled journalist John Pring and has been from its launch in April 2009.

Thank you for anything you can do to support the work of DNS…