February 2017

What: The Green party, backed by Jill Gant, the mother of Mark Wood (who starved to death in 2013 after being found ineligible for ESA [see 9 August 2013], and DPAC, sends a dossier of 50 deaths of benefit claimants to work and pensions secretary Damian Green, and calls for an inquiry into these and other deaths linked to DWP’s actions. In the letter, it says there is “good reason to believe their treatment at the hands of your department has been a factor in their deaths” and that an inquiry should examine “the methods used to assess claimants and their entitlements” and “determine whether these procedures are fair and proper or if they are, in fact, contributing to the deaths of some of the claimants”. The dossier includes the deaths of Stephen Carré, Michael O’Sullivan, David Clapson, David Barr, Ms DE, Stephanie Bottrill, Luke Alexander Loy, Alan McArdle, Sheila Holt, Moira Drury and Karen Sherlock.

Why significant: The Green party (and, to a lesser extent the SNP) remain the only opposition parties to have made concerted efforts to seek justice and further investigation into the links between DWP and the deaths of claimants.