THE Tory government spent nearly £1 million fighting the release of documents requested under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, an investigation revealed today. 

Newsletter Democracy for Sale found that the last government had spent at least £937,000 on lawyers in regards to cases listed at the Information Tribunal in 2023. 

It warned that the true number is likely to be much higher — with information on legal fees obtained on just 58 of the 118 cases listed.

The investigation found that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) had spent at least £120,000 on fighting transparency. 

This included £50,000 trying to prevent the release of a safeguarding review into vulnerable benefit claimants, which was ordered after the death of Errol Graham, who starved to death after authorities wrongly stopped his disability benefits.

After spending £35,600 on solicitors and £15,400 on a barrister to resist scrutiny over the case, the DWP’s appeal was eventually dismissed three years after the initial request, which was made by a campaigner at Child Poverty Action Group.

A spokesperson for Disability Rights UK said: “Evidence published by the John Pring of the Disability News Service (DNS) has shown how the DWP spent more than a decade covering up evidence that links its actions with hundreds, and probably thousands, of deaths of disabled social security claimants.

“All DWP reviews of benefit related deaths should be automatically published so that the Department’s safeguarding procedures can be publicly scrutinised and improved.

“A public inquiry is also essential to understand what has gone so horribly wrong in the DWP that has led to so many unnecessary benefit-related deaths.”

Linda Burnip from Disabled People Against Cuts said: “This simply goes to show how little value DWP attribute to disabled people's lives and how low they're willing to stoop to keep their seemingly murderous actions secret.”

Democracy for Sale’s investigation revealed that the Treasury squandered £220,000 on legal costs fighting FOI cases, while the Ministry of Defence spent £105,000.

The Home Office spent £190,000, including nearly  £30,000 on blocking a request by the Guardian newspaper asking for transparency on taxpayers’ money spent on security costs for the Royal Family. 

According to Democracy for Sale, FOI requests hit an all-time-low under Rishi Sunak, with just 34 per cent of them fully answered, compared to 57 per cent under David Cameron in 2010.