Benefits: Sanctions

Baroness Meacher Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

Let me clarify this. The sanctions level runs at around 5% on a monthly basis. That level is the running rate of sanctions and other figures are simply wrong. On the first point that the noble Baroness made, we do use illustrative examples where they are real, and we make it clear where they are not. In this case, it was wrong—and we have said it was wrong—to have made illustrative examples look as if they were real.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I was involved in an inquiry earlier this year on behalf of the Fawcett Society into the effects of the welfare reforms. One of the greatest problems for clients seems to be the errors on the part of staff, as a result of which a woman can go to a post office for some money at the end of the week and be told, “Sorry, you are sanctioned”, because the message had not been passed on that her child was ill so she could not attend an interview—that sort of thing. Can the Minister tell the House what action his staff are taking to stamp out these errors in communications with clients?

[Lord Freud]

Clearly, one error is one error too many. We work to try to eliminate the error rate, and we have layers of safeguards, for both JSA and ESA, to make sure that we review these cases at each level so that we get it right. Some, of course, will creep through.