EU nationals kept in dark by DWP over why benefits were suspended, charity says

An EU citizen who has pleaded for answers for several months over why his benefits were suspended is feared to have been evicted just over a week before Christmas while he falls further into debt.

Pietor – not his real name – said that he has had no choice but to borrow money after his Universal Credit (UC) payments were suspended in August with no specific reason given by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP).

The 31-year-old has lived in the UK since 2015 and has worked as a kitchen assistant. He was put on furlough at the beginning of the Covid pandemic, and now works part-time on a zero-hours basis.

But he could be left with no income at all as he has been told he might not be offered any more work in the new year.

He was interviewed by the Independent with the help of a Bulgarian interpreter but was no longer contactable from 15 December, the date his landlord threatened to evict him.

The DWP has asked him for documents that he does not possess – such as all the pages of his old passport. But the Bulgarian embassy in London takes expired passports when citizens apply for new ones.

The department said it suspended his payments and has referred his case to the risk review team, but Pietor said he was not given the details why.

Pietor was often called by DWP officials while he was at work about his case and he said he was able to get an interpreter when he asked for one.

But updates and requests for clarification on what he needed to do were not confirmed in writing, and his pleas for help via his online UC account often went unanswered or received vague responses.

He has not been told why his payments were suspended and why his case was referred to the risk review team, according to the Work Rights Centre (WRC), an employment and anti-poverty charity.

Pietor said he feels “angry” with the situation, adding: “I feel like I’m being treated like a criminal and that I’ve done something wrong but I don’t know what’s wrong. No one is explaining what’s wrong. I can’t defend myself because I don’t know where to start from.”

Lora Tabakova, service provision and development manager at WRC, said: “If you need to defend yourself, you need to know what claims you are defending yourself against.”

She said that the charity has about 11 other cases in their extensive records where EU nationals have had UC payments suspended for no apparent reason since August and September – and that it is likely there will be more in future.

At least four claimants shared full print-outs of their UC Journal entries with the charity.

The reasons DWP gave for suspensions were vague, such as: “Your payment was stopped on 15th May 2021. This is because there’s a problem with your claim.”

WRC director Dr Dora-Olivia Vicol said: “This opaqueness makes it impossible for the claimants to challenge decisions, or for organisations like ours to prepare them.

“People need to know why their payments are being suspended, and be given the opportunity to challenge that. By jumping to suspending payments, the DWP is effectively throwing them into destitution.”

“We urge the DWP to give people a clear written explanation when their claims are suspended,” she added.

Kate Osamor, the Labour MP for Edmonton, said her constituency office had been inundated with calls in recent weeks with requests for help from Bulgarian nationals whose UC had been suspended with no explanation, the Guardian has reported.

She has written to work and pensions secretary Thérèse Coffey to express her “grave concern that Bulgarian nationals are being unfairly targeted for benefit fraud investigation based on their nationality”.

When contacted for comment, a DWP spokesman told the Independent that Pietor’s case was a result of “unfortunate communication”.

But, in a statement, a spokesman said: “No one has their Universal Credit benefit suspended without being notified.

“We have a duty to the taxpayer to investigate a benefit claim where we suspect fraud, including potentially organised crime, and the Risk Review Team was set up to investigate risks of criminal activity.

“If someone provides us with details to show their claim is genuine, we would urgently put any payment due into place.”