LABOUR leadership candidate Andy Burnham told an audience in Oxford this morning he believes the Government is hiding the number of people who have died as a result of benefit cuts in recent years.

Mr Burnham told a packed house at East Oxford's Pegasus Theatre that Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Iain Duncan Smith "has sat on figures which show how many people have died from benefits for mental health in the last few years".

He was responding to a question from member of the audience who said the secretary of state should face "criminal charges" for his treatment of the disabled through benefits reform, and he added: "You're right... I'm going to make that a bigger part of my campaign over the next few weeks".

Mr Burnham, currently Shadow Secretary of State for Health, sparred with another member of the audience over the vexed issue of whether enemies of the party have been trying to sabotage it by signing up as members only to vote for Jeremy Corbyn as leader, who is seen by many as a more risky option.

Mr Burnham said he did not want Conservatives to decide the future of the Labour party, and a member of the audience asked him how he would differentiate between Conservatives he did not want anything to do with and Conservatives who needed to win over in order to win a general election.

Mr Burnham also won his audience over by making a joke at the expense of private rail: the MP for Leigh in Greater Manchester, who wants to renationalise the railways, opened his talk by saying he had spent 50 minutes waiting for a 10 minute train from Didcot to Oxford.