Oral Answers to Questions

Mary Glindon Excerpts

Monday 26th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Employment (Esther McVey)]

If somebody misses an appointment and has good cause for not being able to make it, they would never be sanctioned. I do not think that people quite follow the process of what happens. Should somebody not make an appointment or not take the steps to get work that they should have taken, they would have been told that it could be a sanctionable offence. That is what the adviser would say. It would then go to the decision maker, and if there is good cause, 50% will not be sanctioned. The vast majority will not be getting sanctioned because they will have good cause, but they need to be taking reasonable steps to get into work. In fact, monthly sanctions rates are at about 5% to 6% for JSA, and for ESA they are less than 1%. Those are the numbers.

[Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

T2. Following my request for a rescheduled meeting about the independent living fund, the Minister kindly wrote to me on 15 January, but why did he make no reference to my request for a meeting and why did he refer me to post-ILF provision under Newcastle city council when my constituency is North Tyneside?

[Mr Harper]

My point was that the independent living fund has been meeting local authorities across the country to make sure that every local authority with somebody in it that has ILF is well aware of the support it is getting. My answer was saying that to make sure that the person was getting the support, a conversation with the local authority would be more productive than a question to me.