By Helena Vesty
It’s a labyrinthine system that can drive you to desperation. But if that’s all it’s done, you might be considered lucky. This system has contributed to deaths, say coroners and devastated families alike.
In just a matter of weeks, the Manchester Evening News has covered a host of stories – from Greater Manchester alone – where the Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) benefits system has led to, at best, crushing stress, and at worst, death.
At the start of June, we reported how Tracy Hailwood has spent years trying to navigate the DWP’s benefits maze. Tracy became a single mum at just 19. She spent 33 years caring for her severely disabled child, Stacey, day in, day out.
Just months into her life, Stacey was admitted to hospital with croup. During treatment, she suffered devastating cardiac arrest and brain damage.
Stacey developed spastic quadriplegia, suffered epilepsy, and was blind as a result of the brain damage.
Tracy finally received a letter from the hospital in 1998, a decade after her daughter suffered brain damage. The letter, seen by the M.E.N, admitted her care was ‘inadequate’ and that the tragedy should never have happened.
“I wasn’t just Stacey’s mother and carer, I was her personal assistant,” explained Tracy. “I did all the gastrostomy and tracheostomy changes, I trained up support workers for the 30 hours a week from continuing care.”
Tracy says she even paid back all the benefits she had received up to the point of getting the 1998 letter, as she and Stacey then received a medical negligence payout. But now, mourning the death of her daughter, she says she has been told by the DWP to ‘just get a job’.
Tracy, exasperated, has tried to explain to the DWP that her body is failing. She now has severe back problems and painful hips from years of carrying her child up and down the stairs.
She’s battling with a workforce that doesn’t want her – hamstrung by a life out of work caring for her child.
The DWP responded to her dire circumstances saying it ‘always provides the best possible support to those who need it. The DWP’s ‘best possible support’, it says, is ‘paying carer’s allowance for several weeks after someone’s caring role ends’.
That ‘best support’ has been anything but, says Tracy. Tracy’s carer’s allowance was stopped and she says she has been told by the DWP to ‘sign on and get a job’.
“I did everything for Stacey for 33 years so I have no work history,” she told the M.E.N. “But another problem with being told to just ‘get a job’ is that before she was born, I didn’t have any qualifications anyway.
“I was a single parent, I didn’t even have the back up of a partner. I eventually managed to put myself through college and got an NVQ, but even that was 2005 – that’s 20 years ago.”
Tracy is now facing becoming homeless as she can no longer afford to run her Cheadle home, which she has been forced to sell.
“I can’t afford to do anything until the house is sold and I get the money from that. That means I’m going to be homeless for a while,” she explained.
“I’m going to have to stay with either my son or daughter, or my sister in Liverpool. I’ll just have to sofa surf for a bit which isn’t going to help my back…
“My mental health has deteriorated so badly. I’ve thought about taking my own life.”
It’s a terrifying admission – but Tracy is far from the only person who has been ground down by a bewildering system. A system that is often, but not exclusively, relied on by vulnerable and desperate people.
Last month, the M.E.N. told the stories of two young women who took their own lives – before separate coroners presiding over their cases agreed that they were tormented over benefits.
An inquest in May heard how Kristie Hunt, an aspiring nurse from Stockport, was wrongly chased for more than £1,000 before she took her life in an overdose aged just 31.
Kristie’s story had echoes of that of Tameside mum-of-four Karen McBride, a respected anti-poverty campaigner. She was ‘frustrated to the point of desperation’ by the system before being found dead at her home aged 46.
Both were harangued by the DWP over supposed debts running into the hundreds and thousands – which then turned out to be erroneous.
Both faced losing their own homes because DWP failures led to their housing benefits being revoked.
Kristie rejoined the workforce after a 13-year break due to mental ill-health. But Kristie’s call to the DWP to inform them of her new employment wasn’t documented – and she was investigated by the counter-fraud team, was issued a wrongful penalty charge, and chased to pay back employment support allowance money falsely determined by the DWP to be an overpayment.
The DWP also sent incorrect information to Stockport Council, the inquest into Kristie’s death last month heard. It led to the local authority wrongly telling Kristie she owed more than £800 in housing benefit.
It meant the DWP and the local authority were then wrongly coming after Kristie for more than £1,000 for months, until just weeks before her death in 2023.
“At the time of taking the overdose there were a number of factors which on the day, or in the preceding days/weeks, likely impacted adversely on Kristie Ann Hunt’s state of mind and likely contributed to her actions,” the coroner’s conclusion read.
The family of Karen say she suffered the same experiences. The inquest into Karen’s 2022 death was told how she had received a letter from Tameside Council just four months before, telling her that her housing benefit had been suspended.
She then received a letter from her housing association that she was in rent arrears, as her rent was paid through housing benefit.
The ‘apparent issue’ was her son turning 19 affecting her entitlement to housing benefit. Karen’s daughter, Codie, said the debt was ‘pursued for many months’ with letters hounding her, but it all turned out to be a mistake.
The council tax team at Tameside Council said the DWP notified the council to say a ‘non-dependent’ was living at the house. That’s why payments to Karen were suspended.
Codie said: “We now know that the housing benefit should never have been stopped, as regardless of my brother’s age, mum was in receipt of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) which means her housing benefit entitlement would remain the same.
“She was desperately overwhelmed. She was spiralling into a dark place and whenever she rang to find out what was happening and asked about the letters she had received she would be told they were just automated and she should just ignore them. For mum, this was much easier said than done.”
The coroner said the inquest highlighted the ‘complexities of navigating the benefits system’ and said the evidence showed she was ‘frustrated to the point of desperation’.
A DWP spokesperson said: “Our sincerest condolences are with the family and friends of Ms Hunt and Ms McBride in these tragic cases.
“Our aim is always to provide the best possible support to those who need it, ensuring they can access the appropriate services.”
And all the while, there are more people being funnelled into a system that has shown its insidious ability create tragic consequences.
At the start of June, the M.E.N. reported on Nadine Rich, a qualified NHS district nurse from Wythenshawe, with a three-year-old daughter, Nevaeh.
After her relationship broke down last April, she was made homeless. Nadine says she can’t rent privately due to past circumstances, so her only option is to find a council house.
While she’s on the waiting list for a council house, she lives in temporary accommodation in Abbey Hey.
Her temporary flat has ‘rodents’ requiring multiple visits from pest control, which has set her back £600 in all. There’s also mould which has needed treatment, and Manchester council has undertaken repairs.
Using the qualifications she has, Nadine wants to lift herself, and her daughter, out of the 14-month-long plight they’ve faced – but a DWP rule is preventing her, she says.
Nadine is entitled to some universal credit payments to help top-up her income to help with essential costs, like paying rent. She says that would be a £378-per-month boost if she got it.
But Nadine doesn’t receive universal credit because a DWP rule says you can’t spend it on temporary homeless accommodation like Nadine finds herself in. Instead, she can only receive housing benefit.
The more you work, the less housing benefit you’re entitled to – so Nadine has to cut her hours, so housing benefit can cover the £875 per month rent on her temporary accommodation.
When she tried to work full-time, she couldn’t pay for day-to-day essentials, and ended up in rent arrears with Manchester council, which the mum-of-one says saw her suspended from Manchester’s housing register, further delaying her progress to finding a forever home.
So Nadine has cut her hours to 30 per week, and she’s struggling.
“I am getting the rent paid for, but I am being forced into poverty. I can work far more but I cannot afford the rent and petrol,” she said. “It’s £10 per day to get to and from work. If I work five or six days then that’s £60 per week in petrol.
“It’s either my child or my job, I know most women have to make that decision but if I was just put in the appropriate property, it would be different.”
The government says it acknowledges there is a challenge between the interaction of universal credit and housing benefit, and is considering reform of the system to prevent a repeat of Nadine’s case.
“Through our Plan for Change, we have raised the national living wage, increased benefits and provided additional support to thousands of the poorest households across the country,” a government spokesperson added.
“The government inherited a serious housing crisis, but we are taking urgent and decisive action to end homelessness, providing £1 billion for crucial services this year so councils can support families faster.”
But while the government deliberates, Nadine – like so many others – is ‘at her wits end’.
She went on: “It’s putting my life on hold. I cannot progress from band five to band six, because need to do a course. If I go to uni for the course, I still have to pay rent [and without an income] I will end up in rent arrears again.
“I’m a nurse. I’m a qualified nurse.”
Each person we’ve covered in a matter of weeks has fallen into all-too familiar holes of a benefits scheme not fit for purpose. Those who survive say it is leaving them destitute – and all of their cases raise the same question.
It’s one asked by Karen McBride during her years of campaigning. ‘Poverty kills’. So how many more people have to suffer these exact same pitfalls of a complicated system?