Category Archives: sanctions

Tory government suppressed report showing benefit sanctions stop people getting work

Some of us have been saying for years that sanctions on benefit claimants are no damned good. Now we have proof.

The really damning information attached to the report’s publication is the fact that the government suppressed it for years until it was forced out with a Freedom of Information request.

(This Writer is familiar with the use of FoI to force the Department for Work and Pensions to release information – I spent two years campaigning to get damning information released on the number of people who had died after being denied sickness benefits, remember.)

The article, and Samuel Miller’s comments, speak for themselves.

Here’s the government report:


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Tory benefit changes mean around 1m people may be forced into work they can’t do

[Image: Black Triangle Campaign].

The Tories are bringing this nightmare back again.

Jeremy Hunt’s Budget announcement that he is ending the Work Capability Assessment has turned out not to be the relief so many benefit claimants with long-term illnesses thought it would be.

He is ending the Limited Capability for Work-Related Activity element of Universal Credit, meaning that people who received it may now have to seek work under the new Personal Independence Payment system.

They’ll need to claim the new UC health element, and to do that they must also be eligible for Personal Independence Payment – and under this system they may also be required to seek work or accept job offers.

Additionally, assessments will now be carried out by work coaches from the Department for Work and Pensions, rather than the (so-called) health professionals who currently carry out the much-maligned WCAs.

There are fears that these civil servants will not have the proper training to identify claimants’ conditions and needs, and may be set target numbers of people they have to try to force into work, which they will impose on disabled people.

The Institute of Fiscal Studies think tank has estimated that a million people could be forced into work and 600,000 could lose an estimated £350 per month in support as a result of the change.

Hunt has been up-front about the intention behind the change: it’s to push people into work who would not otherwise have sought it.

The problem is that it may push people into work who simply cannot do it.

Experience has shown us what happens when the government forces people with long-term illnesses and disabilities to seek work:

They are rejected by employers – or find that they simply cannot do the work. Unsuitable for employment, and unable to claim benefits, they either starve to death or die of their health conditions.

We have seen it before – many times, in the years since the Tories came back into office in 2010.

It is scandalous that Jeremy Hunt is talking up a change that may make unendurable the lives of people who are already among the UK’s most vulnerable.

Source: Disability benefit changes: ‘My disability means I cannot work but I worry I’ll be forced to by the new rules’


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Government’s role in death of benefit claimant to be examined in new inquest

Jodey Whiting: death by DWP?

The role of the Department for Work and Pensions in the death of former Employment and Support Allowance claimant Jodey Whiting is to be examined after the Court of Appeal approved a second inquest.

The decision follows representations by solicitors Leigh Day, and I’ll let them explain:

Jodey’s mother, Joy Dove, has been fighting for five years to have a second inquest into Jodey’s death to examine the role of the DWP.

The Court ruled that it is desirable in the interests of justice for a new inquest to be held to investigate how Jodey came by her death in light of new evidence Joy obtained after the first inquest into Jodey’s death.

The Court found that it was not only desirable for Joy and her family to have an inquest into Jodey’s death at which they could invite a Coroner to make findings about the role of the DWP’s failings in Jodey’s death, but also that the public at large has a “legitimate interest” in this investigation being carried out.

On the specific facts of the case, the Court of Appeal rejected the argument that the DWP owed Jodey a legal obligation to protect her life (within the meaning of Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights) under the Human Rights Act.

Jodey took her own life aged 42 on February 21, 2017. She had multiple physical and mental illnesses which left her housebound and entirely reliant on welfare benefits. She died a fortnight after her benefits were terminated because she did not attend a Work Capability Assessment. At the time of the assessment, Jodey was housebound with pneumonia, had been in hospital, and had found out that she had a cyst on the brain.

Since Jodey’s death, her mother, Joy Dove, has fought tirelessly for a second inquest into her death so that the role of the DWP can be examined. The first inquest into Jodey’s death lasted only 37 minutes and the coroner refused to consider the role of the DWP.

In the years since the first inquest, new evidence has come to light, including an investigation into the handling of Jodey’s benefits by the DWP and a report from an independent consultant psychiatrist, who concluded that it is likely Jodey’s mental state would have been substantially affected by the DWP’s failings.

The Court of Appeal judgment notes that it is accepted by the DWP that its failings in Jodey’s case “were extensive, both before and after it stopped her benefits with effect from 7 February 2017.” It went on to explain that the Court’s ruling that the DWP did not owe Jodey a legal obligation under Article 2 is “not to ignore the multiple failings on the part of the Department. The Department accepts that individuals within the Department failed to follow the relevant systems and policies at crucial points.”

The judgment explains that the new evidence which was crucial to the decision to order a new inquest was Dr Turner’s evidence that “Jodey would have experienced shock and distress at the withdrawal of her welfare benefits and that the effect would have been heightened by her current difficulties, her isolation and her pain”. It explains that a new inquest is desirable because it is appropriate for a coroner consider, based on Dr Turner’s evidence, whether it is appropriate to record “any link or connection between the withdrawal of the welfare benefits and her mental state in the period leading up to Jodey’s death”.

It is hoped that a date for the new inquest will be set soon and that the DWP will be made an Interested Person in the inquest. The family hope that the inquest will consider the failings of the DWP, as identified by the independent investigation, and the effects of these failings on Jodey’s mental state, including whether or not the failings more than minimally contributed to Jodey’s death.

Joy Dove said:

“I am so pleased and grateful to the Court of Appeal and I would like to thank the Court of Appeal judges that considered Jodey’s case. We buried Jodey just over six years ago and finally my family and I have the chance of getting justice for Jodey.

“Jodey is never going to be forgotten and her death was not in vain, she’s helping others and her legacy will live on. We have always believed that the DWP wrongly stopping Jodey’s benefits caused her death and the High Court’s refusal caused such disappointment not just for me and my family, but others too who have lost loved ones after DWP mistakes and who continue to fight for accountability from the DWP. This is a victory not just for us but for all those families and others still on the receiving end of awful treatment by the DWP. I hope the DWP learn from their tragic failings.”

Merry Varney, partner at Leigh Day, added:

“Today’s unanimous ruling from the court of appeal means finally Joy and her family have the opportunity for the role of shocking failings by the DWP in the death of much loved Jodey to be publicly investigated, and the Court of Appeal has rightly underlined the importance of this not just to Jodey’s family, but to the wider public.

“Inquests play a vital role in exposing unsafe practices and risks to future lives, and today’s Judgement, rejecting arguments made by the Coroner and overturning the decision of the High Court, makes it abundantly clear that Coroners can and indeed sometimes should be investigating more than the immediate cause of death regardless of whether the right to life is engaged.”

Joy is represented by Jeremy Hyam KC of 1 Crown Office Row and Jesse Nicholls of Matrix Chambers and her case is funded by legal aid.

Timeline

  • In late 2016 the DWP began to reassess Jodey’s entitlement to Employment Support Allowance (ESA). Jodey requested a home visit as she rarely left the house due to her health and she made clear in her reply that she had “suicidal thoughts a lot of the time and could not cope with work or looking for work”.
  • Despite this, the DWP decided that Jodey should attend a work capability assessment in January which Jodey did not attend and on 6 February 2017 the DWP decide to stop the fortnightly ESA payments which Jodey relied on from 17 February.
  • Jodey with the help of her family wrote to the DWP explaining the severity of her health conditions and asking them to reconsider their decision to terminate her ESA, but this did not happen until after her death.
  • Jodey also then received letters to inform her that her housing benefit and council tax benefit would be stopped because they were linked to her ESA.
  • Just three days after her last ESA payment, on the 21 February, Jodey took her own life.
  • On 24 May 2017 an inquest was held into Jodey’s death at Teesside Coroner’s Court.
  • Jodey’s family initially wrote to the Attourney General in January 2020 to seek his permission to apply to the High Court for a second inquest.
  • This was granted and the application to the High Court was submitted in December 2020.
  • In June 2021 the DWP was given permission to have a limited role in making submissions to the court about the second inquest application.
  • In September 2021 the High Court ruled that that the new evidence that had come to light since the first inquest did not require a fresh inquest to be held in the interests of justice.
  • Joy sought permission to appeal that decision on 1 Oct 2021 but this was refused on 11 October 2021
  • An application to the Court of Appeal for permission to appeal was submitted on 2 November 2021 and permission was granted on 5 October 2022
  • On January 31 and February 1 2023 the Court of Appeal heard Joy’s arguments for the appeal.

So: no date for the new inquest – yet. This Site will try to keep you informed.


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Firm connected to Rishi Sunak’s wife is still open in Russia and STILL getting government contracts

Dodgy dealings? Rishi Sunak’s government has given a large commercial contract to Infosys, a firm part-owned by his wife Akshata Murty, even though it had failed to stop operating in Russia. Why?

Remember Infosys?

This is the technology company in which Rishi Sunak’s wife owns shares worth an alleged £400 million, and which was found to be operating in Russia after the UK had sanctioned firms that operate in, and profit from, connections with that country after it invaded Ukraine.

Infosys claimed in April last year that it was closing its office in Russia – providing a lucky escape for the then-Chancellor, who had refused to take any action about the company’s continued commercial interest in a country that the UK should have been shunning.

Now we learn the following:

So, after Sunak became prime minister the UK government gave a large contract to the company his wife partly-owns, even though it had not left Russia as it had promised.

Should we not have a statement from Sunak on how this has happened and what he proposes to do about it?


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Changes to Universal Credit rules may mean visiting the Job Centre every working day for two weeks

The big downsides of the Tory government’s plan to push Universal Credit claimants into more work are starting to be seen now.

These follow on from the decision to change the Administrative Earnings Threshold (AET) for the benefit, by hours worked, to 15 hours per week for single claimants and 24 hours per week for couples.

It means 120,000 people have been moved from ‘Light Touch’ into an ‘Intensive Work Search’ group since February 27.

They’ll be required to attend more face-to-face meetings with a work coach – but I bet they didn’t bargain on the number of meetings they’ll have to take on.

The move means Universal Credit claimants could now be forced to attend jobcentres 10 times in the space of two weeksaccording to the Daily Record.

What if a single person is working three hours a day, at awkward times, and the Job Centre is a long way away?

Bear in mind that after receiving UC for 13 weeks, failure to attend Job Centre meetings will mean a benefit sanction – or possibly the loss of it altogether.

The Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union, whose members in the civil service are likely to have to administer this change, has damned it as an attack on UC claimants.

It has stated: “We oppose the introduction of any regime that results in more sanctions for claimants and that there is a mass of evidence that the threat of sanctions does nothing to help claimants find work.”

That’s a bit of a blow for Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt, who allegedly intends to increase benefit sanctions hugely in his Budget.

The Tory government is insisting that its new regime will help UC claimants get back into work, or increase their earnings – by tailoring its support to focus on specific steps.

But This Writer has seen no evidence to support its claim – and evidence against benefit sanctions has been widely available for many years.

Is this just another attack on the most vulnerable people in the UK?

Source: DWP: New changes for benefit claimants mean you will be forced to attend the job centre ’10 times over a 2-week period’


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ON THIS DATE IN 2022: Johnson sanctions hesitation lets Russians make a fortune

From March 6, 2022:

File this under: evidence that Boris Johnson is an asset of the Russian government.

Four Russian-born oligarchs have raked in $423 million in dividends on shares in Russian companies on the UK stock exchange, after the UK imposed sanctions on Russian firms.

How were Roman Abramovich, Alexander Abramov, Aleksandr Frolov and Alexander Nesis able to have the payouts from Evraz and Polymetal? Simple.

Those firms weren’t on Boris Johnson’s list of those to be sanctioned.

In total, the four named billionaires have received $4.5billion (£3.4billion) in payouts from the FTSE100-listed Russian commodities giants since the Tory government of the day failed to act decisively on them after Russia annexed the Crimea in 2014.

None of the four billionaires have been sanctioned either.

It seems Boris Johnson – and his government – deliberately pretended to be imposing heavy sanctions while doing nothing of the sort… wouldn’t you agree?

I’m still calling for comments on this new way of summarising articles, so please let me know what you think, in the comments.


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Universal Credit isn’t enough to live on – and the DWP is making it more conditional

Research has shown that people can’t afford to live on Universal Credit – and the Department for Work and Pensions is responding by making it harder to hold onto a claim.

The DWP’s policy was recently articulated as ensuring that work always pays more than living on benefits – and this is increasingly a problem for poverty-stricken individuals and families, because wages are being pushed through the floor.

The reason for this is to maximise profits for big firms; if they keep their wage bills down, they can pass more profit to their shareholders.

They don’t care about employees’ ability to pay bills because they make most of their money abroad – or the bill-payers are practical hostages, with no alternative options for the services they are being pushed into poverty to buy.

That’s why this has happened:

Universal Credit payments are well short of the amount needed for people to afford essentials, two of the UK’s most prominent anti-poverty organisations warn.

Joint research… by the Trussell Trust and Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that the standard allowance is £35 too low for a single person and £66 for a couple.

Nine out of 10 people on low incomes are going without essentials, the JRF found.

Researchers estimates a single person needs at least £120 per week, while couples have to have at least £200 a week, just to afford essential items.

You might expect the DWP to change direction. You’d expect wrong.

The latest development from the government department is to make receipt of UC conditional on jumping through even more hoops than people already do.

Individuals working at least 15 hours per week and couples working 24 hours or more between them will be moved from the ‘Light Touch’ group to the ‘Intensive Work Search’ group.

They will have increased scrutiny placed on them to find work and develop a career. It also means they are expected to search for opportunities to take up more or better paid work and research new career options.

Combined with a previous increase in September, this will mean around a quarter of a million more people will have been moved into ‘Intensive Work Search’.

Failure to meet the new conditions will mean sanctions and possible denial of the benefit altogether.

The DWP and its ministers talk up the change as though it’s an opportunity; it isn’t.

It is merely piling more stress onto people whose minds are already overtaxed with simply trying to make ends meet.

Source: Universal Credit ‘at least £35 too low for buying essentials’ government told and DWP issues new rules for people working while receiving Universal Credit – all you need to know</a


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Rishi Sunak fails to answer why he helped a sanctioned Russian warlord

Rishi Sunak at PMQs: This is a stock pic – he’s not usually this animated.

Rishi Sunak is coming under pressure to explain why he apparently helped Russian oligarch and warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin dodge sanctions against him in order to sue a UK journalist for libel (the case later collapsed but left the journalist owing £70,000 in legal fees).

Prigozhin is the founder of Wagner, a private army that is currently understood to be committing atrocities in Ukraine.

Challenged on it in Prime Minister’s Questions, Sunak had the nerve to say he was proud of the UK’s sanction system – a system over which he appears to have run roughshod.

And he copped out of answering the question by saying there’s a government organisation that deals with such matters.

This Writer was watching the exchange via the BBC’s Politics Live programme, and was hoping the panel would discuss this matter afterwards, as my tweets showed.

No such luck. I wonder why?

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/


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Did Rishi Sunak help a Russian oligarch dodge sanctions to sue a UK journalist? Will it finish him?

Rishi Sunak: yes, this image again. He looks shifty in it – as he should, if he authorised the activities described below.

This is what happens when celebrities get to sue UK journalists like me – the government ends up giving financial support to a Russian oligarch whose private army is currently rampaging through Ukraine.

It seems the UK Treasury helped a close ally of Vladimir Putin to evade sanctions imposed against him personally (this was before the Ukraine-Russia war) in order to sue a UK journalist.

Rishi Sunak was Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time. The Russian oligarch was Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of Wagner, a private army that is currently understood to be committing atrocities in Ukraine.

In the light of the Ukraine-Russia war, the UK’s apparent support for Ukraine in that conflict (while actually having supported a Russian through this case) makes it seem clear that both Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson before him are hypocrites.

Some say it should bring down the UK government. Here’s Phil Moorhouse of A Different Bias:

He took his information from the website Open Democracy, whose article can be found here.

Here’s where this story intersects with my own legal case, in which I was sued by a certain TV celebrity (I’m currently appealing against the judgment):

Revelations about Wagner and Prigozhin were exposed by Bellingcat in 2020, leading to the notorious libel case against Higgins.

Higgins was targeted individually, rather than as part of a legal case against Bellingcat. This meant that, instead of claiming Bellingcat’s investigations into Wagner were defamatory, the lawyers instead relied on tweets Higgins had sent to promote the investigations on social media.

The approach allowed Prigozhin to launch his legal attack in the UK – where Higgins lives, and where libel laws are more punishing for journalists – rather than in the Netherlands, where Bellingcat is headquartered.

The case collapsed when the lawyers from Discreet withdrew their services in March last year, a month after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and was eventually struck out in May. Higgins was left with estimated costs of £70,000.

The case has been highlighted as an example of a SLAPP action (Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation), an abuse of the legal process designed to intimidate and close down legitimate scrutiny.

You see, the idea is to intimidate the victim (Eliot Higgins in this case, or myself) by threatening them with huge damages to pay and/or huge legal bills.

Higgins told openDemocracy… it was clear that “wealthy individuals abuse the UK legal system to attack legitimate journalists with the assistance of British lawyers” and said the case demonstrated the need for “robust anti-SLAPP legislation” to protect journalists from similar actions in the future.

On a national level – and therefore more serious (even) than what happened to Mr Higgins or myself – is the allegation that the current UK government, and a department headed at the time by the current UK prime minister, deliberately evaded sanctions it had itself imposed, in order to help someone whose private army is currently attacking a country with which the UK has ostensibly allied itself.

How many other times has the Tory government done this? Is it still doing this? Why does Parliament not know about it?

This should be enough to bring Sunak down – along with his government. Please share – and ask your favourite national media outlets (newspapers, TV, whoever) to cover it.

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/


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‘Universal Credit Sanctions Back With A Vengence’ – and we know why, don’t we?

The words of Charlotte from The Poor Side of Life speak for themselves:

It was recently announced during a Commons debate in parliament that Universal Credit sanctions (UC) are “back with a vengeance”.

According to the released figures the sanction rates are now 250% higher than they were for the three months before the pandemic.

In layman’s terms it amounts to 2.5% of UC claimants being sanctioned each month which is almost double the amount when compared to 1.4% before the pandemic.

In June 2022 £34 million was taken away from claimants as a result of being sanctioned. This was followed in July 2022 by £34.9 million and then in August taking the total to over £36 million.

This totals … £100 million which has literally been taken from vulnerable claimants that were already struggling to pay for basic necessities.

According to pensions minister Guy Opperman, 98.2 per cent of sanctions are for missing a meeting with a work coach.

Charlotte rightly says this makes no sense, because Universal Credit claimants are generally desperate for their payments; it is a condition of the benefit that it is not paid for at least five weeks after a claim is submitted (a whole calendar month plus seven days).

This means many have to apply for an advance payment – on loan – beforehand, and consequently receive much less than they need to survive, for a long period thereafter.

And then we’re expected to believe that they wilfully miss meetings with the people who control those payments?

It doesn’t ring true, does it?

This Writer has covered a series of cases in which failure to attend meetings was alleged. The claimants themselves said either that they had been given late notice of a meeting, that it was deliberately timed to clash with another appointment (most commonly medical) that they could not miss, or that they simply had not been informed about it at all.

The implication is that the Department for Work and Pensions, which administers Universal Credit, is not to be trusted.

The problem with that is, often claimants either don’t have the financial stability to launch a challenge against an unfair decision, or they simply don’t have the mental or physical energy.

Source: Universal Credit Sanctions Back With A Vengence ‹ The poor side of life ‹ Reader — WordPress.com

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/


Vox Political needs your help!
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Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

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And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
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The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook