Rudd axes long benefit blocks to fix Tory image
Joy Worrall, 81, did not receive a single penny for 18 months due to a Department for Work and Pensions mix-up.
Instead of turning to her family and friends for help, proud Joy ran through her £5,000 life savings.
She was down to her last £5 with no hope of more to come when she threw herself into a 40ft deep quarry.
Devastated son Ben, 44, said: “I’ve lost my mum who was in a fit and healthy state. The pain will never go away.”
He told the Mirror after the inquest yesterday: “The DWP has a case to answer. There’s some element of duty of care they’re meant to perform for vulnerable people in society. That has not been carried out, by their own admission.
“I don’t blame the people at the DWP – people make mistakes. But they have a duty of care to put a system in place where this cannot happen.”
The inquest heard Ben, who spoke to his mum up to four times a week, found she was missing from her North Wales CRUEL benefit sanctions lasting more than six months will be banned.
Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd unveiled the move, admitting the harsh penalties had damaged the Tories.
But she defied Labour calls to scrap them altogether. Sanctions, for failing to comply with DWP requirements, stop
Where Joy was found dead benefits for a set time. Critics complain they leave people destitute for as little as missing a bus to a Jobcentre.
The ban has only been promised for the end of this year and will not help most claimants. Just 20,000 Universal Credit sanctions longer than six months were dished out between August 2015 and BEN WORRALL SON OF JOY WHO LEAPT TO DEATH November 2018 – 5% of the total. The average sanction lasts 31 days.
Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Margaret Greenwood said: “Six months is still a very long time to leave someone without any income at all.”
Frank Field, chairman of the Commons Work and Pensions Committee, welcomed banning “appalling” three-year sanctions but said there was more to do.
Since the Tories took power, Jobcentre chiefs have dished out 3.9million sanctions to those on Jobseekers’ Allowance, 128,000 to people on sickness benefit ESA and more than 400,000 to those on Universal Credit.