Social Development Minister Louise Upston has avoided reporters waiting to ask about benefit payments being wrongly suspended, using a side corridor to enter Parliament's debating chamber on Friday afternoon.MSD said it became aware of the problem and told Upston about it on 13 August, but Upston told Parliament this week wrongful suspensions had not occurred - before changing her answer after further questions to say it had "possibly" happened.Meanwhile, a beneficiary advocate said the government was playing with their lives.The benefit payments were incorrectly stopped following a law change that was rushed through Parliament last year.The new law requires some beneficiaries to re-confirm their circumstances at least once every 52 weeks, to check whether they are still eligible.MSD said processing delays caused by a high volume of people confirming their circumstances meant some of their paperwork was not checked in time, so their benefit payments stopped.Prime Minister Christopher Luxon apologised on Friday, a week after he said sorry for another related but separate problem which saw thousands of pensioners miss out on their Winter Energy Payment.MSD said it could not say how many beneficiaries were affected by the processing delays, or for how long, but they had all been backpaid and MSD had apologised.What did the Minister know, when?MSD said it identified the problem and made the minister aware of both problems two weeks ago, and apologised to her.Upston was asked in Parliament on Tuesday this week whether beneficiaries had payments suspended due to the processing delayed.She said "no", but after multiple further questions, said "possibly".Upston later told RNZ she was disappointed about what had happened, and she expected MSD to manage its workloads.RNZ asked her office to clarify her comments in the House, but was told she would not comment due to an MSD review into the matter.Reporters waited for Upston on her way to the House on Friday afternoon, but she took a side corridor that avoids areas where reporters can questions MPs.The Greens and Labour called on Upston to front up.Green MP Ricardo Menéndez March said Upston was hiding from accountability, while Labour's Willow-Jean Prime said she was throwing her officials under the bus.Luxon also told Parliament last week he was confident the wrongful payments had not happened.On Friday he said he would not correct his statement in the House because it was true at the time.He apologised to the affected beneficiaries.Govt 'playing with their lives' - beneficiary advocateAuckland Action Against Poverty (AAAP) volunteer Pip Colgan said it had a number of clients she believed were affected by processing delays.She blamed ministers rather than officials."The government doesn't seem to understand that, when they make these changes, they are literally playing with people's lives and causing them to go into debt through no fault of their own, then they get chastised by being in debt, but it's not their fault," she said.Colgan first became aware of the problem in May, when a client contacted her after receiving a letter saying her benefit would be suspended the next day because she had not confirmed her circumstances - which she had."It just threw her into a complete tailspin," Colgan said."She has hugely complex needs, she just had to go to bed."RNZ has seen a copy of the letter from MSD which said: "We've used an automated process to do this. This means our system has stopped your assistance due to you not completing your Confirming your Circumstances review."Colgan said her client had done that in advance - she was very particular, completing the review and then phoning MSD and visiting in person to ensure they had what they needed.RNZ has seen a screenshot of the documents that were uploaded, dated 8 May.Her client could not pay her rent and got into debt through no fault of her own, she said."I rang MSD and they said that they couldn't process it, even though they knew that she had handed it in."Colgan said she managed to get the payments restarted by picking up the hard copy of the forms from her client's house and taking them to MSD.Others would not be so lucky, Colgan said."If she hadn't had me to help her, I don't know what what would have happened," she said."People who are vulnerable often can't work out what to do because it's all overwhelming and too much."Problem lies with Minister not MSD, advocate saysColgan said she did not blame MSD staff, who she understood had been working at all hours to clear the backlog and ensure people received their payments."I got an email from them at 8 o'clock on a Saturday night, which you don't normally expect to get from [Work and Income]," she said."They were working really, really hard to try and sort this out ... it wasn't caused by them, it was caused by the fast, you know, the urgency of decisions that this government seems to be putting through."Colgan said politicians could apologise - as Luxon did - but that did not mean they understood the harm caused."I don't think politicians have the vaguest idea of what they're asking people on benefits to do, and how much instances like this just cause chaos in their lives."