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Daily Mail
15 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Lawn and order! Pensioner, 66, caught smuggling £120m of cocaine inside rolls of artificial grass is jailed for 17 years
A pensioner who was caught smuggling £120million worth of cocaine inside rolls of artificial grass has been jailed for 17 years. Peter Lamb, 66, was found to have to have smuggled one-and-a-half tonnes of cocaine, worth an estimated £120million on the street, over the course of a year. He was caught in May 2024 after taking a receipt of a lorry-load of fake grass, inside which were several custom-built rolls of fake grass that were meant to be filled with the Class A drug. The delivery was one of 20 he had taken into his hands over the span of 11 months. But unbeknown to Lamb, the last load he took had been ransacked by Dutch authorities, who removed the drugs several days prior. Cops in the Netherlands told the National Crime Agency (NCA) of the scheme, and upon Lamb receiving the delivery in Stockton-on-Tees, NCA officers found he used a forklist to move to rolls of fake grass to a warehouse. As he returned to the warehouse the following day, he was arrested by awaiting NCA officers. Following a search of the warehouse, as well as one in Newcastle, officers found a kilogram of cocaine alongside rolls of fake grass. And upon an investigation of Lamb's phone and paperwork, he was found to have made several trips to the Netherlands and set up two grass supply companies. But these firms were found to have sold no products, and it is believed the trips to Europe were done to meet co-conspirators. NCA senior investigating officer Al Mullen said: 'Artificial grass is one of the more unusual concealments I've seen used to smuggle cocaine but no matter what tactics criminals use, the NCA will find both the drugs and the importers. 'We caught Lamb red-handed and uncovered his year-long conspiracy to flood UK streets with one-and-a-half tonnes of the drug. Cocaine destroys communities and lives, but this joint operation with officers in the Netherlands has disrupted its supply in the UK.' After pleading guilty to conspiracy to import Class A drugs at Newcastle Crown Court on March 26 2025, he was sentenced at the same court on June 27.
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Daily Mail
Major search operation underway after schoolboy, 13, vanished near river
A major search operation has been sparked after a 13-year-old schoolboy who has gone missing near a river. Mylo Capilla, 13, was last seen at around 9pm, near Ingleby Barwick, also known as The Muddies, near Stockton-on-Tees, wearing a dark t-shirt and trousers. Five ambulances, a specialist Water Rescue Unit, mountain rescue crews as well as police officers and search dogs rushed to the scene at Ramsey Gardens yesterday evening. The housing estate, near the River Tees, has since been cordoned off as they continue to search for the young boy into the early hours of this morning. Police have urged members of the public helping to locate Mylo to avoid the river, and to scour the streets in pairs instead. Speaking to Teesside Live, a local said there were dozens of residents tirelessly searching for the 13-year-old boy. 'You can see them all in groups of like five or six. There's men and women, some of them are in their dressing gowns,' they said. A Cleveland Police spokesperson said: 'Officers are appealing for information that will help them find Mylo Capilla who has been reported missing. 'The 13-year-old boy was last seen at 9pm on Thursday 26 June at the "Muddies" on Ramsey Gardens in Ingleby Barwick. 'Mylo is believed to be wearing a dark t-shirt and dark bottoms.' They added: 'While searches are ongoing, officers are reminding members of the public in the area to liaise with them directly and for their own safety not to enter any water.' They urged anyone with information to call 101 quoting reference number 117649. A North East Ambulance Service spokesperson said: 'We are currently on-scene at an on-going incident in Ingleby Barwick in Stockton. 'We received the call at 21:29 and currently have one ambulance crew, one duty officer and three crews from our Hazardous Area Response Team (HART) on scene and we are being supported by our colleagues at the police and fire services.' A Tees River Rescue spokesperson said: 'Our crews were called out at around 9:15pm on June 26 2025, to assist with searches along the river Tees. 'We would like to reiterate to any public who may be assisting with the search do not enter the water and do not get too close to steep banks. 'We deployed 2 boats and our welfare vehicle with 8 volunteers in total, we will continue to provide support as requested. We will provide no further details.'
BBC News
3 days ago
- Politics
- BBC News
Yarm Town Council resignations lead to temporary appointments
Four councillors have been temporarily appointed to a town council after all of its members quit in the space of a Town Council was left "unable to act" following the 11 resignations earlier this month, some of which were put down to ongoing hostility and claims of a "toxic" Borough Council said four of its members, including one who had resigned from the town council, had been appointed until elections were held.A spokesperson said the resignations meant the town council was "unable to act, as a minimum of four councillors, known as quorum, is required". It explained because there were so many vacancies, the borough council "may, by order, appoint a person or persons to fill all or any of the vacancies until other town councillors are co-opted or elected to take office".The local authority used its power under the Local Government Act 1972 to appoint John Coulson, Andrew Sherris, Elsi Hampton and Stefan followed an initial wave of seven resignations at the beginning of who also represents Yarm on the borough council, was one of the town councillors who resigned - also giving up his roles as chairman and mayor - alongside six previously told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: "We left because the situation became untenable and in some ways impossible to carry on. "We couldn't progress and proceed how things were."Councillors Pamela Smailes, Brian Newcombe and husband and wife Bob and Barbara Wegg cited ongoing hostility and a "toxic" atmosphere for their resignations last borough council said a notice of election would be published on its website in the coming weeks, no later than 10 July. Follow BBC Tees on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
Telegraph
14-06-2025
- Sport
- Telegraph
Cricket is leaving working-class white kids behind
James Minto is only 17 but already he is the main breadwinner at home and has overcome the barriers caused by social deprivation that make cricket an unfeasible sport for so many in this country. The cost of kit, coaching and travel required to be a good young cricketer are often insurmountable obstacles for those growing up in the poorest parts of the UK. The dominance of private schools has grown as the state sector has ceased to play cricket. Sport England says just 5.4 per cent of children at state schools play cricket in school hours, compared with 14 per cent for those at fee-paying establishments. Private schools make up 28.2 per cent of the schools in this country yet they represent 70.9 per cent of the secondary schools associated with the 18 first-class counties. Minto, who was named in England's Under-19 squad to play India on Friday, is from Norton, a market town in Stockton-on-Tees where the cricket club are twinned with the local miner's welfare institute. He grew up in a single-parent family with his mother Jemma and two brothers. Last year, Minto became Durham's youngest first-class debutant at 16. He is the youngest to take a five-wicket haul for the club and bashed 67 as a nightwatchman opening in a championship match against Nottinghamshire this season to make him the club's youngest first-class cricketer to make a half century. This is quite the bouncer by 16-year-old James Minto. He's Durham's youngest-ever first-class cricketer. — Rothesay County Championship (@CountyChamp) September 17, 2024 Minto is quite short but strong from teenage boxing sessions. He is a left-arm seamer already capable of speeds of 85-87mph and a left-hand bat who opens in club cricket. He offers skills much in demand across all formats. Think Sam Curran, but quicker. But had Minto been born in a similarly deprived area in a different part of the country, it is likely he would have been lost to cricket, raising the question; how many more James Mintos is the sport missing? This is not a piece about Minto necessarily, although he has a remarkable story tinged with tragedy to tell and he talks frankly about his mother's recent death and the burden that now falls on him. But wider than that, he is representative of what one county, Durham, are doing to address cricket's class problem and work with the British, white working-class community that overwhelmingly makes up the demographic of the North East and is often the most overlooked part of society. It has been proved recently that cricket programmes pinpointed at specific communities can have success. The Ace charity led by Ebony Rainford-Brent is working in six inner-cities, focusing on children from African and/or Caribbean backgrounds and producing some players who are graduating into county pathways. New season pending… are you ready? — The ACE Programme Charity (@AceProgramme) March 21, 2025 The South Asian Cricket Academy has helped British Asians, who had otherwise been missed by the professional game, gain county contracts, but the sport has struggled to replicate this with a poor, white working-class group. The report by the Independent Committee for Equity in Cricket, set up in the wake of the Yorkshire racism scandal, said in 2023: 'Cricket must ensure that, along with their ethnically diverse counterparts, white working-class cricketers do not miss out on the opportunity to play and progress.' It added: 'There is an urgent need to recognise and tackle cricket's class problem.' The ICEC also said cricket 'will never be 'a game for all' at county level and above when large parts of society simply cannot afford to get their foot on the ladder and progress, no matter how talented they may be'. The England and Wales Cricket Board has introduced All Stars and Dynamos cricket programmes for children aged between 5-11, but in most cases there is a fee of up to £50 to enrol which is beyond some parents. It also requires children and families to approach cricket clubs. Durham's clubs are county's 'super-strength' During a day spent in Durham, firstly at the Riverside with club officials and then talking to Minto, I also visit South Shields Cricket Club, who have a pioneering programme that offers a blueprint for how the game can reach deprived communities. One of the schools they work with is Dunn Street Primary in Jarrow. There the headteacher in one of the poorest communities in Britain tells us how the pupils are benefiting from free cricket PE lessons and a cricket after-school club provided by South Shields CC. Durham County Cricket Club have long provided free coaching in their player pathway programmes, working in step with their communities. Tim Bostock, the chief executive, describes the local clubs as 'our super-strength'. John Windows, the club's academy director, sees the benefit first-hand. 'Every mining village, town has got a cricket club. I don't know how they have kept going but they have. Now they are all full of juniors. That is the strength of cricket in the North East. For every 9,000 people in Durham there is a cricket club. But picture that in a big city like Birmingham and there will be a club for every 100,000 people, so it is going to be elitist there.' The wider game is reaping the rewards because Durham produce good players for England – Ben Stokes, Mark Wood, Matthew Potts, Graham Onions, Mark Stoneman, Liam Plunkett, Scott Borthwick and Phil Mustard to name the most recent few – and done without the backing of the rich public schools that play such a big role in the south. It is early days, but Minto is on a promising trajectory, and may join that group one day soon. Minto went away as a boy and came back a man Jemma Minto died suddenly in April aged 50 after a short illness. James was on pre-season tour of Zimbabwe with Durham when he was told her condition had deteriorated. 'It was a tough flight home. I had a five-night stay with her in the hospital. I was lucky I got that time with her, that's how I think,' he says, flanked for support by Marcus North, Durham's director of cricket. Minto signed his first professional contract, about £25,000, in May this year and along with an older brother, who is 19, he is looking after youngest sibling Teddy, a 16-year-old left-arm spinner, who is also in the Durham academy. The club are keeping an eye on the boys and there is a care package in place, but Minto has had to grow up fast, ensuring Teddy gets to school and running the household along with his oldest brother, while all three deal with their grief. 'Graham Onions [Durham bowling coach] said I went away [in the winter] as a boy and came back as a man,' he says. 'I just want to look after my brothers and the rest of my family. It's a lot of responsibility, but it can only make us better in the future. And wherever Mum is watching, I want to put a smile on her face. There is no certain way to deal with it. It is awful. Sometimes I get home and cry, but then sometimes like today I feel weird, I don't feel anything. But I'm always thinking about her, my brothers are as well.' Club and community are pulling together for the Minto boys – Norton have put a plaque on the bench where she used to sit and watch her sons play club cricket – and that reflects the North East, where the local cricket club are still at the heart of the community. The ICEC report suggested that all player county pathways should be free of charge. It estimated the cost of junior kit alone to be just under £500. Then there are charges for coaching, trials, attending festivals, travel and club memberships. At Durham this has all been free of charge for several years, pre-dating the ICEC report. 'There were parts of the review that I didn't recognise from a North-East perspective and that our challenges don't get enough focus,' says Bostock. Minto did not have to pay a penny. When he turned up one day with a pair of shoes not suitable for cricket, North went to the local high street to buy new ones. 'Free clothing, playing kit, and not having to buy it all really helped,' says Minto. 'Mum did her best but cricket can be expensive. My little brother has played for Durham for a few years in the academy, it has helped him and many of my mates as well.' Every county age-group boy and girl now gets free kit It costs Durham £50,000 a year to cover the expenses and is funded through their two backers – local businessmen Harry Banks and John Elliott – who insist the money is used on juniors. 'Our indoor facility costs £90,000 a year to rent from the council so there would be a charge for each parent to use it, but we removed that. Every county age-group boy and girl gets free kit and the idea is everyone gets on the pitch for free, summer and winter,' says North. Bostock adds: 'We have to do it. If we don't, we are not going to get any kids to play because they haven't got the money. The demographic here is white British kids, often from single-parent families and often from long-term unemployment.' Durham also face certain social problems with underage drinking that may be less relevant elsewhere and the strength of community brings great positives, but also can stunt personal development. 'There are different challenges here with relationships with alcohol and exposure at young ages,' says North. 'Look at some of the players who come into the professional system. They stay at home longer so that brings challenges. We find we have to be a bit more patient. Private school offers more structure, discipline, which may influence the way they develop. I find we have to wait a couple of years longer to get up to standards [compared with other counties].' Patrick William-Powlett is waiting patiently outside Bostock's office in Chester-le-Street to take us to South Shields Cricket Club. It is a 20-minute drive, a chance to see the community work in action. In the North East, 31.2 per cent of children are on free school meals, the highest percentage in the country. One in five are living in absolute poverty, which means they are taking up the offers from Durham council of food and fuel vouchers, council tax reductions and access to warm spaces. The journalist Joel Budd, in his recent book Underdogs, a study of the white working class, says the North East of England, Yorkshire and the Humber are poorer than Alabama and Mississippi, and Brandenburg in the east of Germany. 'The scale of the problem is enormous,' he writes. The night we go to South Shields, the singer Sam Fender, who is from North Shields, is playing the first of two sold-out nights at Newcastle United's St James' Park. Fender's lyrics are often about his working-class background and the struggles of the community. 'We are very good at talking about privileges – white, male or straight privilege. We rarely talk about class, though,' Fender said in an interview recently. 'And that's a lot of the reason that all the young lads are seduced by demagogues and psychos like Andrew Tate. People preach to some kid in a pit town in Durham, who's got f--- all, and tell him he's privileged?' In Durham, those in work claiming Universal Credit doubled from 9,500 in 2020 to 19,900 in 2023. It is estimated that 28.8 per cent of people of all ages live in a household classed as 'workless', higher than the average across England. Full-time wages are 10 per cent lower than the rest of the country. William-Powlett is a retired secondary school teacher and chairman of South Shields CC. He is one of those dedicated volunteers without whom cricket would cease to exist. He is tireless in running the club's junior community programme, and persistent too, scrapping for every bit of funding he can find and apply for. The Government's Holiday Activities and Food Programme, The Peter Harrison Foundation, Boost Charitable Trust and Sport England have pledged most of the £40,000 a year it takes to run his programme. He slows down as we drive past the Laygate Flats in South Shields. 'Out of the 33,000 postcodes on the Index of Multiple Deprivation, this is ranked 305th in the whole country. There are kids with four living in one upstairs flat with no lift. This is the type of area our kids are coming from, but they're great kids. We have got some from there who could be very good, very talented one day. They are tough as well, committed. They just want to practise and play cricket.' The South Shields ground is a bit rundown, and William-Powlett apologises for the state of the pavilion. The clubhouse had its roof damaged a few years ago and there is no money to repair it. The ground is shared with the local rugby union club and has been home to South Shields since 1877. In that time they have produced only two first-class cricketers; their role being to provide cricket for the community and not just be a pipeline. One of those pro-cricketers was Gordon Muchall, the Durham batsman, and his father is the volunteer groundsman, marking out the boundary as we speak. But they are still giving everything to the community. South Shields work with nine schools and also provide 37 days of summer holiday camps with a capacity for 48 children. At the camps, children are given a fruit salad when they arrive, hot lunch and more fruit before going home. For some, this would be the only meal they receive. 'Some come every day because we know those kids need something to do, they need some food otherwise they will just be stuck on their estate,' says William-Powlett. School nurses talk to the children about healthy eating and the local oral health team drop in. Some of them had never seen a dentist before. Twice a week the children help make lunch, learning how to prepare food from scratch and taking home what is left over. And of course, they play cricket, with qualified level two coaches, while Zimbabwe women's vice-captain Josephine Nkomo is paid to run the girls section. A major part of the work is with schools. The schools they partner with are chosen on need. For a term, they receive two hours of cricket PE and a cricket after-school club. We drive to Dunn Street Primary, through the streets of Jarrow, a name synonymous with poverty but also a fierce pride in its identity. Whereas other schools receive help from South Shields for a term, they have been working with Dunn Street continuously since January 2024, providing two hours of PE lessons a week and an after-school club. The school dinner hall is smaller than the new multi-million pound home dressing room at the Oval, but large enough for South Shields to get kids playing cricket. For headteacher Michelle Trotter, the benefits have been obvious. The area is in the bottom one per cent of the country based on the Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index. It is one of the schools that receives funding from the Forgotten 40 foundation, set up by Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Ineos, and named Forgotten 40 because it refers to the percentage of children in poverty. Dunn Street has a roll of 137, and 70 per cent are on pupil premium (free school meals). Thirty-three per cent have special educational needs. 'There are a lot of challenges for the children and a lot of family challenges. We are a tight-knit community but that has taken a long time to build trust in us,' says Trotter. Cricket has helped. 'It is great to see the children grow in confidence and being excited about something new and different and to be taught by experts. Having that expertise in our school and offering a different role model for our children is great.' It takes a different approach for cricket to crack areas with so many problems. 'I can go into a posh school with a flyer about what we do and the kids will turn up,' says William-Powlett. 'But with the kids we are working with you have to build personal trust with them so the first thing we do is the 290 hours of free coaching with the schools, then a good number of them trust us and come to our summer camps.' For South Shields, the long-term benefit is to unearth talent and expand their membership, hoping some of the summer camp children will become first-team players. Last year, 113 attended the school summer camps, 40 per cent were girls and 57 per cent were on free school meals. There were confidential bursaries available to help parents. 'I know we have a lot of kids who would not be able to access cricket without our bursaries. They just would not have the resources,' says William-Powlett. Cricket and its reliance on public schools is a complex issue. It is not as straightforward as counting the number of public school pupils in the England men's and women's teams and drawing the conclusion they are all privileged. Most went to those schools on 100 per cent scholarships because they were super-talented at cricket, not because their parents had deep pockets. But cricket cannot rely on a small number of private schools, mainly based in the Midlands, South and West, to keep feeding the sport. Initiatives such as Chance to Shine and the Ace Programme do great work in promoting cricket and reaching communities otherwise disengaged with the game. But cracking the state-school problem can only be done with government support and last year's announcement, when he was prime minister, by Rishi Sunak of £35 million to fund state-school cricket has not materialised under Labour. It would have paid for inner-city cricket hubs, but has disappeared into a spending review black hole. So in places like the North East it is down to counties, clubs and volunteers such as William-Powlett to help cricket find the next James Minto, a talented kid who just needs that bit of help. An historic innings 💙💛 The best of James Minto's first-class best of 67. #ForTheNorth — Durham Cricket (@DurhamCricket) May 17, 2025 'I'm just going to keep going and make Mum proud,' says Minto, shifting in his seat as the chat turns to his mother. 'And that is by me getting my head down, and doing what I'm doing now. 'I don't know how my mum did it. She was an amazing mum. She did absolutely everything for us. She would drive us everywhere, sort stuff out and organise everything. She would always be messaging and telling me how proud she was.' Minto, Durham, his mother, South Shields and Dunn Street Primary are all interconnected, if not directly, then by a spirit that threads through cricket in the North East. All of the 18 first-class counties are different and have challenges. Some are doing great work, too, but Durham are setting the standard. Minto might one day be walking, talking, wicket-taking, run-scoring proof of it for England.
Daily Mail
04-06-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
'There will be more Jodeys': Mother of disabled woman who killed herself after her benefits were cut urges Labour to rethink plans to slash welfare
The mother of a housebound woman who killed herself after her benefits were removed has warned Labour that their proposed disability cuts will lead to similar deaths. Jodey Whiting, 42, from Stockton-on-Tees, had been asked in January 2017 to attend a work capability assessment before her payments were stopped, but she was not well enough to go, her mother Joy Dove told the Teesside Coroner. She was found dead in her flat by family members a month later and an initial inquest recorded a conclusion of suicide but ignored the impact of the Department for Work and Pensions' (DWP) decision. Ms Dove was granted a second inquest into her daughter's death, which ruled on Monday that Ms Whiting had taken her own life aftér her benefits were wrongly ended. And now the victim's mother has called on Sir Keir Starmer to rethink his £5billion benefit cuts which are reportedly 'set to cut disability payments for one million people'. Ms Dove told the Mirror: 'If Labour carry on with their disability cuts there will be more Jodeys. What happened to Jodey is what happens when benefits are taken away. 'They are saying they need to fill this black hole. But they can't fill it with vulnerable people. 'It's the same with the winter fuel allowance and the benefits cap. People need protecting. There are so many people who have taken inspiration from Jodey's story. We need to keep fighting for them.' Ms Dove added that she feels as though she has proved her mother correct following the coroner's verdict, which she claimed was greeted by words of agreement by those in the gallery. Notes found alongside the mother-of-nine's prescriptions drugs were read out in court on Monday, with one saying: 'I've had enough.' Bridget Dolan KC, coroner's counsel, said: 'She wrote about not being able to pay her bills and having no food. 'In some she wrote about feeling breathless and having back pain and trying to pay her bills and being in debt.' Ms Dove fought a long legal battle for a second inquest, which went all the way to the Court of Appeal. She told Teesside Magistrates' Court how her daughter had nine children including two sets of twins and suffered from a curvature of the spine, later being diagnosed with a brain cyst. An Independent Case Examiner (ICE) report into the decision to remove Ms Whiting's benefits found that a number of mistakes had been made, and her payments should not have been withdrawn. In a pen portrait, Ms Dove said: 'Her death really impacted on me, and to learn from the ICE reports of the number of failures by the DWP was to play was a further deep shock that I have not recovered from.' She added that she reassured her daughter that she would help her, telling the inquest: 'I said, "don't you worry, we will write in and we will explain how you have been in hospital and you are still convalescing."' But in January 2017 Ms Whiting was told she had missed the medical assessment while suffering from pneumonia. And the following month, her mother said Ms Whiting received another letter saying she was fit to work. Ms Dove claimed that her daughter told her she could not breathe or walk out of her flat at this time. Ms Whiting then received another letter from the DWP telling her that her benefits were being stopped, including her housing benefit and council tax. Ms Dove said when she saw her daughter, two days before her death, she was 'shaking and crying' and had threatened to kill herself. She added that she was sure the stress of losing her benefits was the trigger for her decision to take her own life. 'I know my daughter and I know it was (that),' she told the inquest. 'It was the fact she couldn't find a job, the worry of paying bills and being pushed out after being so vulnerable all those years and years.' Ms Whiting's mother, pictured in 2023, fought a long legal battle for a second inquest, which went all the way to the Court of Appeal Questioned by Jesse Nicholls, for the family, Ms Dove added: 'I know for a fact it was the DWP that caused it. 'She was quite happy for me to go through and look after her. There's no way it was anything other than that.' Her father Eric Whiting, meanwhile, compared her to the 'Pied Piper' as she always had children around her who adored her. He added: 'She always saw the fun side of life until her health issues started.' Ms Whiting, who had six grandchildren, had suffered from chronic pain, was dependent on opiates and had long-standing mental issues. Her mother agreed that she had become increasingly housebound in the last years of her life. She had a hospital stay in December 2016 after contracting pneumonia and that meant she missed letters about her benefits, saying she needed to be medically assessed. Granting Ms Dove a second inquest in 2023, Lady Justice Whipple said: 'I think it is in the interests of justice that Mrs Dove and her family should have the opportunity to invite a coroner, at a fresh inquest, to make a finding of fact that the (DWP's) actions contributed to Jodey's deteriorating mental health and, if that finding is made, to invite the coroner to include reference to that finding in the conclusion on how Jodey came by her death. 'After all, the department deals with very many people who are vulnerable and dependent on benefits to survive, and the consequences of terminating benefit payments to such people should be examined in public, where it can be followed and reported on by others who might be interested in it.' The original inquest, which lasted just 37 minutes, determined Ms Whiting had taken her own life. Ms Dove's lawyers argued there were 'multiple, significant failings' by the DWP when it terminated her daughter's Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) that were not considered at the previous inquest. Her barrister Jesse Nicholls said: 'The first inquest into Ms Whiting's death provided her family with no catharsis. Indeed, the inquest has had the opposite effect given what is now known about how Ms Whiting came by her death.' Lady Justice Whipple added in her ruling: 'Thirdly, if the findings the family seeks are made, it is at least possible that the coroner will wish to submit a PFD (prevention of future deaths) report to the department. 'Indeed, it may be that the coroner will wish to hear from the department at the second inquest about any remedial steps which have already been taken in light of the ICE Report and as part of the coroner's consideration of whether to make a PFD report.' A Government spokesperson said: 'Our sincere condolences remain with Ms Whiting's family. 'DWP is ready to assist the new coroner with their investigation. We cannot comment on active legal proceedings.' Two photographs of Ms Whiting were placed on the coroner's bench at the start of the hearing. In May, it was revealed that one million people are set to lose their disability payments amid Labour's cost-cutting crackdown on benefits - causing uproar within the party. The huge changes to the welfare system, due to be announced next week, are tipped to see only the most severely disabled people qualify for support amid an overhaul of eligibility criteria. Cuts to the Personal Independence Payment (PIP), for those with a long-term condition which causes them to struggle with mobility or every tasks, will account for the bulk of the £5billion savings. The upheaval will also see payments slashed for many people with mental health conditions, those needing a hearing aid and people who struggle with basic daily processes like eating, washing and dressing themselves. The changes are expected to affect around one million people - and will be applied both to people claiming disability payments for the first time and existing recipients, as reported by the Times. Sir Keir Starmer insists benefits cuts are urgently needed as the welfare bill is 'going through the roof', while Chancellor Rachel Reeves added the government must 'get a grip' on the system. Ministers say savings will be used to bolster employment support and the basic rate of universal credit. But Labour MPs have reportedly criticised the move - including deputy prime minister Angela Rayner and energy secretary Ed Miliband, who raised concerns in cabinet. Even work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall is said to be 'unhappy with the scale of proposed cuts', the New Statesman reported. An announcement on the measures had been expected earlier in May - but was delayed amid a major operation to win over backbench sceptics. Many have spoken out against cuts to PIPs in particular, which disability charity bosses have called 'deeply damaging', 'devastating' and 'a disastrous move'. The reforms also include getting rid of the 'work capability assessment' for benefits based on incapacity for work and preparing people with long-term sickness for work. Ms Kendall is also expected to cut the top rate of benefits for those deemed unfit to work, which currently stands at more than £800 per month - twice the jobseekers' rate. But sweeping changes to the eligibility criteria for PIPs, paid out regardless of whether the person is working, will account for the bulk of the changes. Around 3.2million people claim PIPs - up by more than a million since 2019. Roughly five million people are expected to be claiming them by the end of the decade. The government has suggested making those changes in particular is not desirable but nevertheless necessary - the cost of PIPs is forecast to increase by £15billion in real terms by 2030. PIPs - the major controversy of the package - are currently awarded on a points system, with applicants getting scored based on how difficult they find certain everyday and mobility-related activities. The number of points they get determines the grant they receive. Amounts range between £1,500 and £9,600 a year. But from now on, applicants will need to score at least four points on at least one activity to qualify for being considered for a payment. The need for a hearing aid does not meet the threshold. Those who need help to wash their hair or body below the waist would not qualify for support - but those who need help to wash their upper body would. Needing help going to the toilet would meet the threshold - but those who need reminding to use it would not. Those who need help cooking a meal would qualify for support - but those who could use a microwave would not. Needing to be reminded to see people face-to-face would not be supported - but needing help to actually have those interactions would. Applicants who get the four points needed to qualify for being considered would then need to get another four points on top of that to get the lower rate - and another eight to get the higher one.
