The Times ignores efforts to draw its attention to years of DWP deaths as it launches its own ‘welfare inquiry’

The Times has joined a long list of organisations and individuals that are ignoring the risks posed by cuts and reforms to the social security system for disabled people who rely on benefits to survive.

The newspaper this week launched The Times Welfare Inquiry, headed by journalist Fraser Nelson, a former editor of the right-wing Spectator magazine.

Nelson (pictured), who caused huge anger among disabled people two years ago with a documentary on the disability benefits system for Channel 4, appears set to target what he calls “sickness benefit”, which probably refers to the health element of universal credit.

He also wants to examine the treatment of young disabled people, both those on universal credit and claimants of personal independence payment.

He appears convinced that too many disabled people are receiving support through the social security system.

And he appears to back the work of Alan Milburn, who he says is “likely to make bold recommendations” in his final report for the government on young people not in education, employment or training.

Last month, Milburn swore at Disability News Service’s editor after being challenged at Labour’s party conference about his failure to discuss the safeguarding risks involved in forcing tens of thousands of young disabled people into employment, as he is set to recommend in the next few weeks.

This week, Disability News Service (DNS) attempted to alert Nelson and The Times to the same safeguarding concerns it raised with Milburn in Liverpool.

DNS pointed to the years of evidence linking DWP with claimant deaths – including coroners’ reports, academic research, secret government reviews, family testimony, and safeguarding adults reviews – and emailed a small sample of the news stories it has published over the last 15 years*.

DNS asked if the inquiry would be examining these safeguarding concerns in its inquiry, and whether it would take the deaths seriously.

Many of those deaths directly resulted from the attempts of successive governments to cut spending on disabled people’s support.

Nelson said this week, in an article announcing the inquiry’s launch, that he and his colleagues “warmly welcome contributions from readers”**.

But The Times press office and its inquiry had both failed to respond to two emails from DNS by noon today (Thursday).

Last year, the broadcasting watchdog Ofcom decided not to pursue 88 complaints relating to rules on causing offence and disability discrimination following Nelson’s Dispatches documentary for Channel 4, Britain’s Benefits Scandal, which aired in December 2024.

The programme was described by the grassroots, user-led mental health group Recovery In The Bin (RITB) as an “atrocity” and by Disability Rights UK as “an insult to the millions of disabled people on the poverty line”.

Many disabled people on social media were just as scathing and angry, describing the programme as “quietly hateful”, “dehumanising”, “scapegoating”, “distressing” and “demonising”.

*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’s actions and failings, is published by Pluto Press

**The inquiry’s email address is: [email protected]