Has anybody noticed how the Department for Work and Pensions contracts out the dirty work of benefit assessments to organisations that have proved untrustworthy – but can’t even be trusted to collect and release its own statistics in an appropriate way?

Congratulations to South Shields Labour MP Emma Lewell-Buck for getting the DWP to agree to measure the number of people who don’t have enough to eat, as part of a national survey carried out every year. It will refer to people who either can’t afford to buy sufficient food or are worried about their ability to buy food in the future.

But will these figures see the light of day? The DWP doesn’t seem to have published any responses to “Freedom of Information” requests since March 2016.

And if it is being asked to release information that makes the government look bad – such as, for example, statistics showing the police had shared information on disabled people attending public protests – the DWP seems simply to refuse to answer.

We know people have been forced to steal in order to feed their families, due to kack-handed DWP benefits incompetence.

And famished children have been caught stealing from school lunchboxes in incidents we may link with DWP policies.

Does anyone really think the DWP will admit information that connects these events with government policies?

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