People on benefits are dying. It’s time for some transparency
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Version 0 of 1. If the government would care for an insight into what its “safety net” has become, it could do worse than looking at the case of Nick Gaskin. Gaskin, who has primary progressive multiple sclerosis (MS), cannot walk, feed himself or talk but, last month, received a letter from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) informing him he should attend an interview about “the possibility” of getting a job. Related: Man who cannot walk or talk called for jobcentre 'back to work' interview People who have such severe disabilities they are unable to work are – by definition of being put in the support group of employment and support allowance (ESA) – not required to attend mandatory meetings. As Gaskin can only communicate through blinking, it was his wife, Tracy, who called the jobcentre in Loughborough to explain this. The DWP now says it will apologise over the “misunderstanding”. But not before Tracy was told that if her husband did not attend the interview his benefits would be stopped. It is that easy now. Dig through reports by academics, charities, or people claiming benefits themselves, and each week appears to mark another step in the reduction of entitlement to punitive whim. This month alone we have learned that jobcentres allegedly have targets for the number of people’s benefits they should stop, and that the unemployed face having their jobseeker’s allowance cut if they do not exhibit a “positive outlook”. The DWP enjoys setting rules. It is less keen at playing by them. Currently, Iain Duncan Smith is embroiled in a row over burying figures that show how many people have died within six weeks of their benefits being stopped. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has said that there is no reason for the statistics to not be made public. We know any of this not because of government transparency but how we know much nowadays: a freedom of information request, this time made by the journalist Mike Sivier. It gives an insight into Duncan Smith’s thinking that when confronted on the issue in the House of Commons, it was the campaign to disclose the statistics – rather than the deaths themselves – that he called “disgraceful”. Stop the money that people need to live and some will stop living. You do not need an economics doctorate to grasp that. In fact, the ICO is investigating the DWP over a separate refusal to go public with its “peer reviews” into 49 specific deaths of people on benefits. Reviews that – according to the government’s own internal guidance – are triggered when suicide or alleged suicide is “associated with a DWP activity”. It is worth noting that the DWP has just ignored the deadline to submit evidence on this. Ask yourself why a government department in a so-called civilised democracy would not want to get the bottom of the deaths of its citizens. It is as if they do not want to know the answers. Stop the money that people need to live and some will stop living. You do not need a doctorate in economics to grasp that. Nor a medical degree to predict that arbitrarily sanctioning benefits and declaring the severely ill “fit for work” was never going to endanger the healthy or middle classes. It punishes the people who commit the worst crime in austerity: the ones who need the government’s help. “Nick’s quite fortunate, he’s got a great group of carers. He knows he can trust me and I can fight his corner for him,” Tracy Gaskin explained. “But there are people out there who haven’t got that … If this had happened last year – I’m in remission for cancer – that probably would have tipped us both over the edge.” Related: How many benefits claimants have to kill themselves before something is done? | Frances Ryan I have written about some of the people who fell past the edge. Malcolm Burge, the retired gardener who had his housing benefit cut by 50% and drove to Cheddar Gorge in Somerset and set his car on fire. David Clapson, the diabetic jobseeker who had his benefits sanctioned and was found with no food in his stomach and CVs next to his body. There are others. And the truth the DWP cannot hide is that, if it were up to them, we would never know of them. It is clear we have a government that feels at liberty to do anything it wishes to a citizen if they happen to be claiming benefits. Duncan Smith has built this system and is now trying to hide the harm it’s done. Its victims are being treated in death by their government as they were in the final weeks of their life: discarded as if they do not matter. |