Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill

Chris Stephens Excerpts

Friday 2nd December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mhairi Black]

I have let the hon. Lady in multiple times, and she has sat there and not listened to a single word. She can put her hand up all she likes. Shaking her head and wishing that this was not the reality is exactly the attitude that is wrong; it is what I am trying to challenge. SNP Members experience day in, day out the hardship that the Government are causing, so I suggest she sits back and genuinely listens to what I am proposing in the Bill rather than trying to score political points and build her ego.

If the Tories are so convinced that they have adequate protections in place, why not support a Bill that formally establishes them for the most vulnerable? The UK Government will say that they already have the guidance in place, which I appreciate. That is all the more reason to protect it formally and give it statutory power and cover. The Bill would also ensure consistency across the board. In reality, the protections in the Bill go beyond the vague protections within guidance by specifically protecting vulnerable groups and putting responsibility on the Government to assess a person’s individual circumstance.

The Government say that they have already taken measures to protect claimants from sanctions when they announced their intention to undertake a trial involving warning claimants of the intention to impose a sanction on them—a yellow card system whereby people are given a period of 14 days to provide evidence of a good reason. In a written answer on 18 November, the Minister stated:

“The Jobseeker’s Allowance Sanctions Early Warning Trial in Scotland ran until September 2016 and involved approximately 6,500 claimants. Data was collected throughout the trial period to assess the extent to which the warning trial affected sanction decisions.

Qualitative interviews are currently being undertaken with a sample of these claimants to gain an understanding of how the new process affected claimant behaviour. The trial has now finished and a full evaluation is being undertaken.

The interim report will be published at the end of the year and the final report around April 2017. Findings from the trial will inform any decisions on future roll-out.”

If the Government are prepared to make small changes, then surely for the reasons I have outlined for the last wee while, it is perfectly reasonable to ask them to support the Bill, or at least to give some kind of concession or introduce a similar proposal of their own.

Fundamentally, the Bill has two points: first, to assess the individual’s personal circumstances before any sanction is applied; and, secondly, when a sanction is applied, to assess them automatically for a hardship payment. They are very small asks. As I have said, I have tried to be as constructive as possible to introduce a measure that the Government can get on board with, and to put aside party political differences and the different routes that we believe politics should go down.

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend has given a tour de force this morning. Is it the case that support for the Bill also comes from the trade union representing staff employed by the Department for Work and Pensions—the Public and Commercial Services Union—which wants consistency across the board?

[Mhairi Black]

When I was first putting out the feelers to find out what people thought should be in the Bill, I went to numerous jobcentres. All the jobcentre staff I came across said that the Bill would be brilliant for them. They said it would be great because it would give clarity on what they can do. If they had a list or a code of conduct, they could say, “Right. You’ve got a child who is sick. It is clear that this does not apply”, and it would not be left to their personal judgment.

The Bill is logical and small. It protects not only our citizens and the most vulnerable people in our society, but the staff, who are under tremendous pressure in a system that is constantly changing at a rapid pace. I have genuinely tried to make the Bill one that we can pass together. I have tried to build a bridge over which all political parties can cross. I ask the Minister and all hon. Members who have sat in the Chamber today—I imagine the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) will not be joining me—to support the Bill as much as they possibly can.

--- Later in debate ---

[Conor Burns]

I will make a little progress, if I may, and then I will give way to the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens).

We should also understand that this system of sanctions is not new; it has operated and existed for decades. It underlies a fundamental principle of ensuring that those who are being supported are not abusing the support that is being offered. There is a very real risk that the practical effect of the hon. Lady’s Bill, however well intentioned it is, would be to render the system of sanctions impotent, preventing it from encouraging claimants to meet their commitments.

It is important that we understand the historical context and practical purpose of sanctions. Conditionality has been a long-standing feature of welfare benefit entitlements in the UK since the formation of the welfare state itself. The Beveridge report spoke of the citizen having a “profound reciprocal obligation” to co-operate fully in the restoration of his earning power. Maintenance would be provided by society but

“only to the extent to which its members are willing to accept their corresponding social obligations”.

Access to full unemployment benefits has always been conditional on the recipient being involuntarily unemployed, being available for work and doing as much as can reasonably be expected to find such employment.

[Chris Stephens]

The hon. Gentleman has been talking about the “taxpayer” and about how benefits are not a right. Does he know that 3,665 employees in the Department for Work and Pensions are chasing benefit fraud estimated at £1.2 billion, but that only 320 employees are based in the High Net Worth Unit of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs chasing tax avoidance estimated at £70 billion? Should we not be going after the tax avoiders far more than we should the most vulnerable in our society?

[Conor Burns]

First, I say to the hon. Gentleman that I did not say that benefits are not a right; benefits are a right, and a right that I fully respect and uphold. Secondly, on the point that we have heard many times—we had Opposition day debates on it when I was a bag carrier in the Treasury—as he knows, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, when he was Financial Secretary to the Treasury, reconfigured HMRC by focusing on more regional offices, so that we can have greater impact in the collection powers of HMRC and the focus it has on ensuring that the tax collected is the tax owed.