Senior Labour MP calls for urgent safeguarding action after ‘harrowing’ account of PIP review tragedy

An influential Labour MP has called on her government to take urgent action to safeguard benefit claimants, after a disabled man was found dead in distressing conditions weeks after the wrongful removal of his disability benefits.

It is believed that David*, from Salisbury, may have been left without enough credit on his mobile phone to call for help, and that he had not had enough money to fix his broken mobility scooter, after his personal independence payment (PIP) was removed in January.

His sister Susan* believes that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) stopped his PIP after he was too ill to return his review form, and that DWP may have failed to make the necessary safeguarding checks before removing it.

So far, more than 180,000 people have viewed the story on the Disability News Service (DNS) website since it was posted last Thursday (27 March).

Those who responded on social media described the circumstances of David’s death as “horrific”, “heartbreaking”, “harrowing” and “tragic”.

Many highlighted how David’s death was a warning of what could happen if the Labour government pushed ahead with its plans for billions of pounds of cuts to disabled people’s support, including more than £4.5 billion cuts a year to PIP by 2029-30.

One of them, Tracey Russell, said: “Sadly, this is the first of what will be many more deaths under this Labour government.

“It’s so very wrong. You can’t take benefits away from sick and disabled people without these kinds of repercussions.”

Another, who posts at The Red Queen, said: “We’ll be seeing a lot more people in these situations.

“It could be any one of us losing a family member like this.”

This week, Debbie Abrahams, Labour’s chair of the Commons work and pensions committee, called on DWP to take action to improve safeguarding in the wake of David’s death.

In November, Labour’s new work and pensions secretary, Liz Kendall, compared the countless deaths linked to her new department under Conservative-led governments with the Mid Staffs hospital scandal, in which hundreds of patients died as a result of poor care.

Kendall told the committee: “I don’t just want people to be safe, which is the bare minimum, I want the best possible standard of care and support for people who rely on us.”

But Abrahams said this week: “My committee was told that after years of neglect the department was going to bring safeguarding back to the heart of all it does.

“But that’s hard to square while support for disabled people is being cut and the deaths of those denied support they are entitled to continue to happen.

“For the most vulnerable, the system should and must be more compassionate, especially at a time when people can feel isolated by the vilification of claimants in the press and the tone from the government.

“It’s time for the department to back up sentiment on safeguarding with action.”

She said David’s death was “not a new phenomenon, as the tragic deaths of Errol Graham, Philippa Day, and others show us”.

Abrahams described the DNS story as “a harrowing account of the social security system at its most inhumane”.

She said: “The very thing that should be a safety net for the most vulnerable in society failed.

“A lot of questions need answering: Why was support removed?

“What help did the department provide for his application? Indeed, did they even identify him as vulnerable, and if not, why?”

The committee has completed taking evidence as part of its inquiry into “safeguarding vulnerable claimants”, which began in the last parliament when the committee was chaired by Sir Stephen Timms, the current minister for social security and disability.

A committee spokesperson said the inquiry was “currently assessing the evidence and is likely to report before the summer”.

John McDonnell, the suspended Labour MP who has supported the disabled people’s anti-cuts movement for nearly 15 years, said on Twitter/X that David’s story “exemplifies why disabled people are so fearful of the Government’s plans to cut benefits.”

He called again for the government to establish an independent panel to investigate DWP-related deaths, as recommended by disabled researcher Mo Stewart.

Susan said this week that the reaction to the story from the public and from MPs had been “overwhelming” and provided some hope “that safeguarding procedures will be tightened and reinforced”.

Caroline Collier, from Inclusion Barnet’s Campaign for Disability Justice, which played a key role in exposing the tragedy, said: “David’s harrowing story should be giving pause for thought to all in government.

“This happened on the current government’s watch, pointing to a failure to act fast enough to review and tighten safeguarding procedures.

“At the Campaign for Disability Justice we are going to be calling for an urgent review of advice provision – we think a mandatory referral into advice services when disabled people’s benefits come up for reassessment is a vital protection which needs to be implemented.

“Instead of making gatekeeping resources their overriding aim, the DWP’s primary purpose should be to safeguard and support all of us at times of need.

“It is vital that the government rethink their approach – if the green paper is implemented in its current form, it is likely lead to a widespread and devastating breakdown of the social fabric which Rachel Reeves clearly cannot imagine due to her distance from the issues.

“But she needs to be told that it could lead to thousands of excess deaths from neglect and despair, family carers unable to continue supporting their loved ones, and complete overwhelm for the NHS and social care.

“David’s tragic death needs to open the government’s eyes before they travel any further on this disastrous path.

“As I have said before, as a country we can and must do better.

“There are other options, and these must be utilised rather than plunging hundreds of thousands into poverty.”

More than three days after first being approached by DNS, a DWP spokesperson said last week: “Our sincere condolences are with [David’s] family.

“We are currently looking into the details of the case.”

But DWP has again refused to answer questions about David’s death, and said this week that it had “nothing further to add at this stage”.

DNS had asked if the department would be apologising to Susan; if it would be investigating the circumstances of David’s death; whether David had been flagged on DWP’s systems as a “vulnerable” claimant; if DWP accepted there had been a critical safeguarding failure when it appeared to have removed David’s PIP without checking he could survive without it; whether DWP only reinstated his PIP after learning of his death; and whether it would now put reforms and cuts to PIP on hold until his death has been investigated.

Meanwhile, DNS has obtained proof from DWP that shows Therese Coffey (now Baroness Coffey) was the former Conservative work and pensions secretary who banned her department from using the word “safeguarding”.

Sir Stephen had told the work and pensions committee in February that “a former minister” had “banned” the use of the term – despite DWP’s connection with countless deaths of disabled benefit claimants since 2010 – and that the new government would reintroduce it.

Following his evidence, DNS submitted a freedom of information request to DWP, asking for evidence that showed which minister had banned the word.

DWP has now provided DNS with a heavily-redacted email from Coffey’s private secretary, written to senior civil servants on 12 February 2021.

The one line in the body of the email that has not been redacted says: “SoS [secretary of state] said that she wanted it understood that she does not want us using the term safeguarding because our use of the term is not understood outside the department and that she would like advice on changing the title Senior Safeguarding Leader.”

*Not their real names

Picture: Debbie Abrahams (left) and ‘David’

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