UK: A penniless father of 3 commits suicide while waiting for welfare payments

Phillip Herron, a single dad from Durham, England, is another victim of the UK’s punishing benefits system and decades-long attacks on the working class.  The 34-year-old father of 3 was driven to suicide after waiting a month for his Universal Credit (UC) welfare payment.  At his death, he had only £4.61 in the bank.  We can only image his distress.

On March 18, he went to a secluded country lane and committed suicide after uploading a selfie of himself in tears on social media alongside a suicide note. Phillip left his employment at a factory just before becoming a full-time carer for his children.

His distraught mother, Sheena Derbyshire, 54, told the Daily Mirror that Phillip wrote that “his family would be better off if he wasn’t there anymore.”  His family was ignorant of his financial issues, therefore his death came as a “total shock.”

Sheena eventually discovered that Phillip owed £20,000 to banks, utility companies, and modern-day loan sharks, or payday lenders who charged him 1,000 percent interest.  Phillip was in risk of losing his home. Sheena found an eviction notice from his social landlord, the Bernicia Housing Association, among his files.

Sheena was able to piece together the last 6 months of her son’s life by sifting through his computer and mobile phone.  It demonstrated that Phillip’s life was collapsing through no fault of his own.  Listening to the past few months of voice messages indicating Phillip’s deteriorating mental health was “the most heartbreaking thing I’ve ever done,” according to Sheena.

Phillip’s death has devastated his family.  Sheena stated that his youngest daughter is “completely lost.”  She misses her father so badly.  She had a dream the other night that he appeared to her.  She stated, “I implored him not to go again.”  But when I awoke, he was not there. The children have not even been provided therapy.”

Sheena will submit the evidence she discovered among Phillip’s possessions during the impending inquest following his death, which will be held in Sacriston, County Durham, to reveal how the UC system failed him.

UC was introduced in 2010 and implemented nationally between 2013 and 2018.  It is a single benefit payment that replaces 6 former benefits for the jobless and people on low incomes.  The Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition has proposed streamlining the benefits system, which is intended to encourage individuals into low-wage employment and reduce payments as part of a £12 billion cut to the welfare budget.

Because UC is paid in arrears, an initial claim must be filed at least 5 weeks before the first payment is made.  This creates enormous misery.  “When people come to the government for aid, they are already desperate,” Sheena told the Daily Mirror.  “Making people wait so long for compensation is risky.  There’s no reason it should take this long.  Phillip already had issues, but I believe this was the last straw.”

Phillip’s death sparked an outpouring of grief, sorrow, and hatred on social media.  The Manchester Evening News Facebook page received 260 comments, including “This is inhumane,” “those poor youngsters,” and “the poorest loans should be wiped off like the banks were.”

Another tweet targeted Amber Rudd, Secretary of the Department for Work and Pensions [DWP], who has been retained in Tory Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s new class war cabinet: “You should hang your head in shame.”

In response to the tragedy, a DWP representative stated: “Suicide is a highly complicated subject, therefore it would be incorrect to relate it to someone’s benefit application.”  In response, one user on social media said, “Now another dead on their blood-soaked hands.”  Someone from Leeds wrote, “So previous Tory Prime Minister “Theresa May” sobbed after losing her position.

She seemed unconcerned about the working-class victims of the Grenfell Tower disaster.  She never cried for those who suffered as a result of Universal Credit cuts and even committed suicide when all hope was lost.”

Joy Worrall, an 81-year-old retiree, plunged herself into a quarry in North Wales in May after the DWP froze her pension benefits, leaving her homeless with only £5.

Martin John Counter, a 60-year-old Bromley resident, took an overdose in September after being falsely accused of benefit fraud.  He suffered from a variety of health issues that rendered him ineligible for employment.  He had failed to notify the DWP of certain bank funds when he applied for Employment Support Allowance (ESA), a vital payment for persons with disabilities.

Stephen Smith, 64, died on April 15 in Liverpool weighing only six stone as a result of horrible agony.  The DWP terminated his ESA and pronounced a chronically unwell man “fit for work.”

Terry Craven, Stephen Smith’s advice worker, told the WSWS that learning of Herron’s death was “very sad.”  I sobbed when I saw Phillip’s case.

“He died unnecessarily.”  Phillip is the result of the wicked government’s goals and aspirations.  Former Tory leader and DWP minister Iain Duncan Smith is back in power and will be wringing his hands with delight.

“Anyone reading about Phillip’s suicide would think, ‘Is that what it does to you, asking for Universal Credit?’ and will end up doing low-paid job.”

Last year, the Trussell Trust donated 1.6 million food kits to impoverished homes.  A quarter of users need assistance due to social security delays, half of whom were UC applicants.

Renters can quickly fall behind on their rent and face eviction if they do not make their initial payment on time.  According to an Inside Housing research, persons on UC were twice as likely to report being homeless to their local authorities than those receiving earlier benefits.

Phillip’s death occurred just months after an academic research commissioned by Gateshead Council discovered that claimants in the UC system had pondered suicide for a variety of reasons.  Alice Wiseman, the director of public health at Gateshead Council, stated of the study’s results, “I regard Universal Credit, in the context of greater austerity, as a threat to the public’s health.”

An All-Party Parliamentary Group on Universal Credit study titled “What needs to change about Universal Credit?” issued on July 18 shows that the UC welfare changes are intended to exacerbate working-class poverty. It indicates that under UC, residents face a rent gap of between £100 and £300 per month.  Families with three children lose on average £2,600 per year, while bigger families lose an average of £7,800.

Families earning more than £7,400 a year are ineligible for subsidised school lunches, trapping many homes in poverty.  More than 100,000 households with handicapped children will be worse off by at least £1,750 per year.

Parents under the age of 25 lose £66.05 per month under UC, compared to the former tax credit system.  Parents who are students are unable to claim childcare assistance.  People with significant care requirements are expected to lose around £64 per week, while the majority of disabled individuals in the ESA support group would lose £42.

Under UC, substantially more people face welfare sanctions (the first consequence being denial of payments for 91 days).  Eleven percent of claimants have been sanctioned, with almost one-fifth of them receiving several sanctions. 

Labour Party leaders frequently criticise the UC system.  Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Margaret Greenwood stated, “The Coalition Government claimed Universal Credit would pull people out of poverty, but instead it is wrecking lives.”  This demagogy masks the fact that Labour refuses to push for the removal of UC.  Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn just wants it to be “redesigned.”  A party spokeswoman recently stated, “Universal Credit isn’t functioning and cannot continue in its current form.”