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A man who was diagnosed with bowel cancer says his life was ‘ruined’ after the Department for Work and Pensions sent him a letter demanding he repay £10,740 in benefits due to a loophole with his pension.
David Robinson, 60, had been living with his mum and caring for her until she died. One month before her death, he had started claiming Universal Credit to help with his living costs while he began treatment for cancer, the i reports. Three years later, in 2024, his partner and her son moved in with him and he told the DWP about the change of circumstances and continued to be paid his benefits as normal.
But later that year, a letter landed on his doormat from the DWP demanding he repay a staggering £10,740 in Universal Credit.
The reason given was that the DWP did not have a record of his old workplace pension scheme income, so had not been taking the money into account when calculating how much he could get on Universal Credit.
He was then asked to repay £92 a month until the debt was repaid, which he could not afford while he was battling cancer.
David told the i: “I was in shock, I just couldn’t understand how I had been overpaid as I was still really struggling for money.
“We’ve had to sacrifice everything to keep up with the repayments, we’ve even had to cut down on food. It’s ruined our lives, to be honest.”
He managed to secure a debt relief order, which should have frozen the repayments for 12 months to help him get back on his feet, but the DWP continued to take £40 a month instead.
Since his story was made public, the DWP has stopped taking repayments on the debt and has refunded his last two payments.
A spokesperson for the DWP said: “We have stopped taking money from Mr Robinson’s Universal Credit payments while his debt relief order is in place and deductions made after he became insolvent will be refunded.”
