MP still waiting for welfare reply

LABOUR MP Debbie Abrahams used the last session of parliament before the summer recess to demand answers over the whereabouts of benefit-related death figures.

The MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth raised the issue earlier this month in a debate on welfare reform and disabled people. On Tuesday she was granted an urgent question to ask Prime Minister David Cameron why he hadn’t kept to his commitment to publish the data, about the number of people in receipt of employment and support allowance and incapacity benefit who had died since November, 2011.

Last month Mr Cameron said the figures would be published and were being prepared. In his absence from the Commons Conservative MP Priti Patel said the figures would be published before the autumn.