Benefit Sanctions

Corri Wilson Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2015 Westminster Hall

[Corri Wilson (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries.

The UK Government brought in the sanctions regime to tackle the perceived culture of worklessness, which they used to justify the introduction of sanctions and conditionality as measures to change people’s behaviour and to incentivise people to find work. However, as I have recently been involved in the Welfare Reform and Work Bill Committee and listened to many hours of evidence from stakeholders, I know it is widely accepted, except perhaps by this Tory Government, that sanctions have a negative impact on people and our society. They are linked to poverty, homelessness, debt, stress, anxiety and mental health deterioration.

Recent studies suggest that the Government’s introduction of sanctions on JSA claimants has led to a significant rise in the number of people leaving unemployment benefits, but, as has already been mentioned, they are not returning to work. After June 2011 an estimated 43% of people who received sanctions went on to leave JSA altogether. As my hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray) mentioned, less than 20% of that group are recorded as having found employment.

Sanctions do not appear to help people return to work; they appear to help people slide out of view, and that in itself has huge implications for the welfare system. Despite a number of groups highlighting that, there has still been no comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of sanctioning, looking not just in narrow terms of unemployment benefits but at the bigger picture of health, homelessness and other social costs.

Sanctions come from a black and white place where people need to be punished for not doing as they are told. However, as we all know, life is not that straightforward. How can someone battling mental health or addiction who, owing to their chaotic lifestyle, misses an appointment be expected to respond to sanctions that ultimately plunge them into greater chaos?

The welfare system was designed to be a safeguard to help and support people in a time of need, yet that safety net has been ripped from under many people’s feet, leaving them vulnerable, in extreme hardship and in some cases at very real risk. Both Crisis and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation have said that sanctions are responsible for a significant increase in homelessness and rough sleeping. According to Quarriers, one in three homeless young people has been sanctioned.

Having worked in the Department for Work and Pensions for 20 years, I know that staff are in an impossible position when implementing these regimes. They often take the brunt of the claimants’ frustration and anger at the system. When I worked there, sanctions were used in extreme cases. They have their place, but a decision to impose them was not taken lightly. However, it seems that they are now the norm, leaving people destitute.

According to the Money Advice Service, a fifth of adults in the UK are over-indebted. In my constituency, 22% of people have reported being at least three months behind with their bills. Almost a third of them have a household income below £15,000 and rely on state benefits. Imposing sanctions, even for a short time, can throw hard-up families into arrears on rent and household bills that can take them months or even years to recover from. It could be argued that hardship payments are available, but people need to jump through hoops to get them and they are stripped of their dignity in the process.

People on universal credit have to pay back their hardship payments at a rate of 40% of benefits: the same amount by which hardship payments are less than benefits. In essence, universal credit sanctions last 3.5 times longer than their nominal length. These people do not need a brutal sanctions regime; they need a fairs day’s work for a fair day’s pay. People do not want to be on benefits. They want to be safe, have a roof over their head and food in their belly and to have some money in their pocket to spend. Austerity measures mean cuts, cuts and more cuts, with less spending resulting in fewer jobs.

The answer is to take measures to increase employment and grow the economy and then allow the DWP to revert to supporting people into employment, addressing the barriers to that and allowing staff to do their jobs. The key to doing that successfully is a positive relationship between the DWP adviser and the claimant, with the adviser having the autonomy and resources to address barriers to work.