The Government has apologised "unreservedly" to the family of an 82-year-old Flintshire woman who committed suicide after her benefits payments were stopped.

Joy Worrall had just £5 in her bank account on the day she died, after her benefits and winter fuel allowance was stopped for 15 months.

For the Government, Work and Pensions minister Guy Opperman told MPs: "The Government apologises unreservedly for the clerical error.

"It was a clerical error that led to Mrs Worrall's pension payment being stopped."

Labour MP David Hanson (Delyn) raised the case of his constituent on behalf of her family and urged the Government to ensure "nobody again will commit suicide due to poverty".

Mr Opperman said his thoughts were with the family and friends of Mrs Worrall.

He added: "We have urgently reviewed our processes and acted so that benefits are longer linked on our systems, to try to ensure that this does not happen again.

"But there is an internal process review and I undertake to write to the honourable gentleman with what we do know in the short term, and more detail when the urgent processes review has taken place."

An inquest held in Ruthin last week heard that Mrs Worrall was too proud to tell her family about her financial troubles and threw herself off a quarry, as she had always threatened to do if she had major health or money worries.

Her son Ben Worrall said the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), which has apologised for the error, was “guilty of a failure of duty of care”.

In a statement read at the hearing Mr Worrall, of Rhosesmor, near Holywell, said his mother was fit and well but kept things to herself if anything bothered her.

He spoke to his mother, who lived nearby in Church Terrace, Rhes-y-Cae, three or four times a week and last contacted her on November 19.

Two days later, after a friend contacted him to ask where his mother was, he went to her cottage and raised the alarm when he could not find her. Her car was also missing.

A police search was launched and a helicopter was called in. The following morning members of the North East Wales Search and Rescue team found Mrs Worrall’s body at the foot of a 40-foot face at Rhes-y-Cae quarry.

Mr Worrall said her death was a shock as there were so many unanswered questions, but when he investigated his mother’s affairs and contacted the DWP the true picture emerged.

Mrs Worrall, a divorcee, who had been receiving a state pension and pension credits told the Department in 2014 that she had received a recent inheritance.

Nothing was changed, but in July 2017 the situation was being re-assessed.

However, instead of only her credits being frozen, her entire pension was stopped, with the result that she had no income whatsoever.

Mr Worrall told the inquest his mother had only £5 in her account on her death, having apparently spent all of her £5,000 savings.