Out-of-work Benefits

Baroness Meacher Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

I completely agree with my noble friend, and we need to take this up with the Department for Education, which has responsibility for this. My noble friend has been a long-time champion of technical and higher education. I will speak to my colleague in the Department for Education, write to my noble friend and place a copy in the Library.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, in response to an earlier question the Minister rightly said that many people are sanctioned and deprived of their benefits because they fail to turn up for an interview. I happen to know that a good proportion of those people—parents with sick children, for example—are denied benefits because of a failure of somebody in the department. The child wakes up sick in the morning, the parent phones in and says, “I’m sorry, I can’t make the interview; please hand on this information”, it is not handed on and they are sanctioned. This happens time and again. Will the Minister accept that this is the case and look into it?

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

I am very happy to look into it. Before I do so, maybe I can speak with the noble Baroness to get some more information to share with my colleagues in the department.