Benefit Sanctions

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Tuesday 13th December 2022 Westminster Hall

[Chris Stephens]

I thank the hon. Lady, who is a good friend, for her intervention. She has done fantastic work in this area, which I very much support. I am concerned about the effects that sanctions have, and that the whole deductions policy has. The effect that taking money away from people has on cost of living payments is another real issue, which I will come on to.

I would also add that, based on exchanges I have had with Ministers past and present, people can be sanctioned if they refuse a zero-hours contract job. Someone could be in a position where they have secure work, but less hours. The Department is encouraging people to increase their earnings, so if that person refuses a zero-hours contract and insecure work, they will be subject to a sanction.

Then, we have the position of the DWP staff themselves. Some have received letters saying that they need to increase their earnings. It is no wonder that they are going on strike, is it? There is an anomaly here: many thousands of DWP staff are paid so poorly that they are claiming the same benefits they deliver, while sharing an office with someone who could then sanction them because they have not increased their earnings or their hours. I find that completely and utterly bizarre, and I hope that Ministers will look at PCS’s concerns and maybe treat the situation of DWP staff separately. It seems to me that the Department that is delivering social security should not be taking social security away from the people who are delivering it.

Food banks across the Independent Food Aid Network see a newly hungry person referred as the result of a sanction every three days on average, so I have a number of questions for the Minister. Does he agree that the current sanctions policy is forcing people to use food banks if they are not to go hungry? To that end, will the Minister undertake to publish the Department’s evidence review on the drivers of the need for food aid, which was promised two years ago, yet remains under wraps? As the Chair of the Select Committee, the right hon. Member for East Ham, has outlined, that is one of the reports that remains unpublished, and it is something that we want to see.

The Department’s own serious case panel agreed at its October meeting that

“there should be further collaborative work undertaken through the appropriate governance routes to explore strengthening the mechanisms which protect our most vulnerable customers in respect of sanctions.”

Will the Minister explain to us what that collaborative work will look like, and when it will take place? Will he also undertake to commission a study into any correlation that exists between the distance someone lives from their nearest Jobcentre Plus and the likelihood of them being sanctioned; the prevalence of poor mental health and vulnerability within households on universal credit and the likelihood of them being sanctioned; and the prevalence of digital exclusion within households on universal credit and the likelihood of them being sanctioned? We know that the Department has closed jobcentres; we also know that has made it more difficult for people to attend jobcentres and that they may be sanctioned for not attending a jobcentre.

Will the Minister also provide an update on the Department’s most recent trials of the yellow card early warning system in two areas, including any plans to roll out that system further afield? I do not accept that there should be conditionality in the system, but if we are going to have conditionality it seems sensible to me that there should be a yellow card system, or some sort of warning system, in place before the decision is made to issue a sanction. Given that the present system seems to rely heavily on individual discretion, which is resulting in people becoming destitute, does he agree that a fully national roll-out of a yellow card system is needed sooner rather than later?

As I have indicated, people being subject to a sanction could mean—indeed, has meant—that they do not receive their cost of living payment, but that decision could be reversed if they appeal and win their appeal. However, it seems to me that if there are 6,600 universal credit claimants who have missed out on that first cost of living payment because of sanctions, the Department for Work and Pensions should look at that situation. It seems to be a double punishment. The cost of living payment is in place so that people can meet their basic living needs and if they are sanctioned, it appears that there is something very wrong.

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

I agree with my hon. Friend that sanctioning people on the lowest of incomes at any time is grossly unfair, but at this time, when even many people in well-paid work are struggling to pay their bills, it is obscene. I had not been aware, so I thank him for highlighting it, that some people are not getting the cost of living payment that the Government say we need to survive.

I congratulate my hon. Friend not only on securing this debate, but on asking the questions that led me to discover that this summer £153,000 was taken from my constituents by DWP sanctions. Will he join me in saying to his constituents, as I am now saying to my constituents in Glasgow North East, “If you have your benefits sanctioned, do not take it lying down. Contact me and I will fight this for you, because this is wrong and nobody should have to live on less than the minimum income”?

[Chris Stephens]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention and she is absolutely right. We are in a cost of living crisis. During the pandemic, the Department rightly took the view not to sanction people. We are now in a cost of living crisis, and if we did not sanction people during the pandemic, we should not sanction them during a cost of living crisis either. That seems to me to be a sensible approach.

My hon. Friend is also correct in highlighting the great work that constituency office staff do in helping the most vulnerable to see off these attacks. We have all dealt with cases of people being sanctioned; I think that every single constituency office across these islands has had to deal with that.

In closing, I will mention some of the staff concerns. There are concerns that jobcentres have been told by senior managers and Ministers to “up their game” when it comes to sanctions. There are very real concerns about the culture and certainly there is a view that there needs to be a mind-shift towards supporting people in what is important and that punishment has not achieved anything. There is very limited and patchy evidence that sanctions actually work.

There is inter-office competition, whereby different offices’ statistics are compared, pushing for higher sanction and deferral rates, and labour market decision makers are using box-ticking exercises. Pressure is put on the work coaches themselves, through tighter timescales and pushing people to physically attend the jobcentre, with the harms that causes the long-term employed. There are also real effects on disabled claimants who are thrown into a group of those most likely to get a sanction, and the relative rate of sanctions for claimants with disabilities—all of that really needs to be explored further.

Sanctions appear to be back with a vengeance, and that shift of approach requires parliamentary scrutiny. As someone who believes that conditionality has not worked, I think we need a change in approach to put the claimant and their needs at the heart of the social security system. The Department must accept the Select Committee’s recommendations to introduce either a yellow card system or another warning system, because failure to do so would mean the Department going back on its word in how it responded to previous Select Committee reports. I look forward to hearing whether colleagues have to say, including whether they accept—as I do—the need for change and reform.