This unjust system must be reformed

THE blunt brutality of the DWP benefits assessments and the vulnerability of the people who suffer from the blunders of bureaucracy are starkly illustrated today.

A 50-year-old claimant suffering from MS was made to stand for painfully long periods during an assessment and another was refused payment for conditions she doesn’t suffer from. They show the system is delivering on its inhumane design.

Repeated humiliating assessments, petty sanctions and inexplicable refusals of benefit are run of the mill for vulnerable claimants, who have to live with the stress of wondering if they will lose their entitlement within the next few weeks.

The freezes in benefit, the benefit cap and the financially strangled introduction of Universal Credit have created a tidal wave of misery and poverty across the UK.

As the reforms become embedded so do the effects, such as the sinking poverty that individuals and families cannot rise out of.

With a new secretary at the Department for Work and Pensions in Amber Rudd, a more liberal and empathetic politician than her predecessor Esther McVey, there is a chance to take stock.

Rudd has seen how Sajid Javid took over her old post at the Home Office, making sure the crass bureaucratic errors of the Windrush scandal were addressed.

She has the opportunity to do the same and be the new broom that cleans out the cruel bureaucracy of the DWP. We wait in hope if not in expectation.