Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill

Mhairi Black Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 2nd December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Conor Burns]

It is incumbent upon all Governments of all colours to work constantly to try to improve the systems under which we operate. The answer, however, is not to remove a sanctions regime—[Interruption.] I am sorry, but the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South set out the matter very clearly; this is a Trojan horse Bill.

[Mhairi Black]

If I wanted to use this Bill to get rid of sanctions, that is exactly what it would say on the cover. I have explained, and I cannot be more sincere in explaining, that this Bill is not about removing sanctions. It is a genuine attempt to bring some consistency to a system that is allowing far too many people to fall through the cracks. It is about ensuring that individuals are not left without. That is compassion.

[Conor Burns]

The hon. Lady was very clear in her speech to the House earlier that her view is that it would be much better to have a system with no sanctions in place. [Interruption] That is what the hon. Lady said. What I am trying to outline is the way in which the Government are working within the existing processes to improve the arrangements of the system so that we genuinely deliver benefits to those who need them, but root out those seeking to abuse the system and therefore break the social contract with the taxpayers who are working to pay those benefits.

One of the ways we have done that was when, in December 2015, we accelerated the process for considering hardship payment claims so that they are now paid within three days. The Government response to the Select Committee included the announcement that we would trial a sanctions warning system and that we would give a further opportunity for claimants to provide evidence before a sanction is applied. That would strike the right balance between enforcing conditionality and fairness. The trial started in Scotland in March 2016 and ended at the end of September. Evaluation is currently being undertaken to enable ministerial decisions on any future national roll-out.

Sanctions are not jumped to before any other considerations; they are used as a last resort. The Government have put in place a comprehensive monitoring regime to ensure that sanctions are always, and only ever, applied appropriately. Not only is the decision to impose a sanction taken by an independent decision maker, but everyone is made aware of their right to appeal, and claimants are given every opportunity to present additional evidence. It is not a form of arbitrary and cruel punishment for those who, of innocent circumstance, were forced to be late for, or miss entirely, a meeting.

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[Conor Burns]

I have in fact been in those circumstances. I was unemployed and had to sign on after I graduated in 1994 in the worst graduate recession since the second world war. I experienced that again after I tried to get elected to this House in 2005 and had not got the money; I had to decide whether to pay the mortgage or the council tax on overdraft. So, yes I have been in those circumstances, and I have to say: do not ever sit there and suggest to people that we do not have the ability to empathise in this House of Commons simply because we sit on the Conservative Benches. That is the worst type of class war stereotypical nonsense, which frankly we should have moved way beyond in this House a long time ago.

Let us return to the point in question. The fact is that 94% of JSA claimants stick to their commitments and are not sanctioned, and even smaller is the percentage of ESA claimants—the main in-work sickness benefit—who are sanctioned, which stands at less than 1%. However, something being uncommon does not justify ignoring it, if it is a justified issue, which brings me on to my other point.

Department for Work and Pensions research shows that 70% of people receiving JSA and 60% of those receiving ESA said that the regime made them more likely to follow the rules. This is a sensible policy, which takes account of, and goes to great lengths never to disadvantage, those genuinely in need of benefits, but which seeks to cut down any dependency culture, ensure that those claiming benefits—

[Mhairi Black]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for allowing me to intervene. Has he read the NAO report published this week which shows that a quarter of all people between 2010 and 2015-16 have experienced a sanction? That is the reality; that is the real fact.

[Conor Burns]

I am very comfortable with the figures that I have given the House, and I see the Minister nodding his affirmation that those figures are indeed correct.

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[Conor Burns]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. Indeed, the Government are constantly listening and adapting the system to improve it. We heard a lot from Opposition Members about people on JSA being categorised as vulnerable, but, as the Secretary of State announced recently, the Government are extending the list of vulnerable groups to include those with mental health conditions and those who are homeless. This will mean that they can receive hardship payments from day one of their sanction. The Government have also accelerated the process of considering hardship payments so that they are now paid within three days.

[Mhairi Black]

I want to respond to the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mims Davies). As the hon. Member for Bournemouth West (Conor Burns) is sincerely saying, the job of Government is to listen, and they should do so constantly. If they do listen, they will find that there is huge disparity throughout the UK. While it is fine to say in theory that the system should be consistent, the Government should listen to the facts, and the reality of the stories that we are hearing today is that that is not happening. Let us listen and introduce something that will formalise that consistency. That is all that this Bill is about.

[Conor Burns]

I am happy to be a useful conduit for the hon. Lady to make that point to my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Mims Davies), but it may stretch the generosity of the Chair were I to invite my hon. Friend to reply through me to the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South.

Much has been said about people who work in jobcentres, including that some of them might be callous or cold-hearted people who, on a whim or when in a bad mood or if they got out of bed on the wrong side, would somehow deliberately impose hardship. I do not recognise that characterisation from the meetings that I have had with them in my constituency. They are often berated and vilified simply for doing their job. They are honest people.

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[Lucy Frazer]

Yes, I welcome that. I am also delighted that 90% of JSA claimants who apply to the hardship fund are successful.

[Mhairi Black]

I welcome the comments made by the hon. and learned Lady and by the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson) on the importance of the hardship fund and the good it can do. Will she therefore support the principle of the Bill? Instead of waiting and making the individual responsible for applying to the hardship fund, the Bill would mean that the individual’s entitlement to a hardship payment is immediately assessed. Is that something she can support?

[Lucy Frazer]

My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West (Conor Burns) rightly identified that hardship payments are one of the steps set out in the process. We do not necessarily need legislation to identify the fact that people should be told that a hardship system is in place—that should happen. The hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South rightly identified that the practice works in some places. If it works in some places, it is not legislation that is needed. We need to ensure that good practice is happening throughout the country.

The hon. Lady also rightly spoke about the work of jobcentre staff, and the Oakley review said:

“All of the conversations that the Review team held with Jobcentre Plus staff highlighted their dedication to trying to help claimants back into work and ensuring that the social security system was administered fairly and effectively.”

That is what we need to keep doing.

The Bill rightly recognises that the position could be improved, because things can always be improved. There is a continuous assessment of what is right and what is wrong. We have had the independent Oakley review of sanctions, which recognised that work still needs to be done.

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[Lucy Frazer]

I will make some progress.

Secondly, the hon. Lady questioned how people can provide evidence that a bus or a train was late. I can think of a number of ways of doing so, such as taking a photograph of the dashboard or asking a member of staff to provide evidence. Thirdly, she said that staff may be affected, but I have already covered that point.

In conclusion, the hon. Lady’s Bill is important because we need to assess what works and what does not work. I welcome the call for consistency, because it is absolutely vital that we have a system that works fairly throughout the country.

[Mhairi Black]

Will the hon. and learned Lady give way?

[Lucy Frazer]

I am about to finish.

I welcome the fact that we have had a review—the Oakley review—and the fact that the Government have taken on board some of the recommendations. We must consistently and constantly strive to ensure that work pays, that we encourage people to find work and, at the same time, we must protect the most vulnerable.

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[Mike Weir]

We are not discussing the principle of sanctions today. We are discussing a Bill that sensibly seeks to mitigate the current system. Whether there should be sanctions at all is another debate for another day, but it is not what we are debating today. Many Government Members have spoken about mitigations in the system. It is true that people can get hardship payments, but it can take many weeks. Not only that, but the hardship payments are a percentage of what people would get from benefits. Despite what many people seem to think, benefits are hardly over-generous in the first instance. People who get by on benefits find that they cannot get by on hardship payments.

Parts of my constituency are relatively prosperous. Many people work in the North sea oil industry, for example. In the downturn in that industry, people lost well-paid jobs. Many of them came to me absolutely flabbergasted at the amount of money they got by signing on because they had believed for so many years the rubbish pushed by some of our media that all people on benefits live the life of Riley, which is absolute nonsense.

The point has been made that there is nothing new in the sanctions system, which is correct—sanctions have been part of the system since at least 1996—but what is new is the number of sanctions and how they are imposed. The system is deeply flawed, and SNP Members have long called for a full independent review of it. Even the National Audit Office found in its recent report that a shocking 24% of jobseeker’s allowance claimants received a sanction between 2010 and 2015 and that the rate of sanctions varies dramatically. That is not right and the Government must listen to the concerns about the damage that the application of benefit sanctions has on individuals and their families.

The report also states starkly:

“sanctions are not rare. A quarter of Jobseeker’s Allowance claimants receive them at some point”,

which blows apart the Government’s assertion that only a small minority receive them. Worse still, there is absolutely no consistency in the figures. The report finds that some Work programme providers made more than twice as many sanctions referrals as other providers within the same geographical area, even though claimants are randomly allocated, so that case load characteristics are identical for each provider. That would not happen in a fair system.

There should be no more than a minor variation if the system is used uniformly. Clearly it is not, which the Bill would address by adding a clear code of conduct. The point is that, wherever someone is subject to the system up and down the United Kingdom, the same principles would be applied, and it would not be left to individual variance from place to place. The NAO believes that the DWP does not use sanctions consistently, noting that sanctions referral rates

“have risen and fallen over time in ways that cannot be explained by changes in claimant compliance.”

The Bill that my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South has introduced would make a start on the process. Hon. Members accept that it does not do away with the sanctions regime. She is very intelligent and knows perfectly well that such a Bill would never get through the House in its current form. However, the Bill would go a long way to ensure that there is a coherent, unified process for all jobcentres and that advisers take a claimant’s personal circumstances into account before issuing sanctions. Advisers would be compelled to take into account whether a person is at risk of homelessness and whether they have caring responsibilities or a mental health condition that could be exacerbated if their benefits were sanctioned.

It is interesting to note that in March 2015 the Work and Pensions Committee published a report, “Benefit sanctions policy beyond the Oakley Review”, which recommended, among other things, that the Government take urgent steps to implement fully the outstanding recommendations of that report. To be scrupulously fair, the Government have taken some measures. They have trialled the yellow card system and we still wait to see what the outcome of that trial will be.

[Mhairi Black]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. I hope that the Minister will address that point at the end of the debate, because in a written answer to my question asking when the details of the yellow card system would be published, the answer was the end of November. We are now into December.

[Mike Weir]

When my hon. Friend has been here as long as I have, she will realise that a political month can go on for a very, very long time.

The point is that many of the people who are subject to sanctions are vulnerable or, frankly, leading chaotic lifestyles because of mental illness. In its comments on the Bill, SAMH, which has a scheme in my constituency, said:

“People with mental health problems are among the most vulnerable of benefit recipients, are disproportionately targeted to be sanctioned and are among the least likely to understand or be able to comply with the conditions attached to their benefit.”

SAMH also makes the point that

“Sanctioning this group…serves no purpose other than to make their illness worse and their personal circumstances even harder to cope with—making employment a less, not more, likely outcome.”

In response to a Scottish Government consultation last October, it added that

“The number of sanctions applied in Scotland doubled in the last year, and individuals with mental health problems are disproportionately affected.”

According to Mind, figures obtained by a freedom of information request in November 2015 showed that 19,259 people with mental health problems had their benefits stopped under sanction in 2014-15, compared with just 2,507 in 2011-12. That is a 668% rise in just three years, which cannot be just or right.

These people are already vulnerable. The reason that they are perhaps not fully compliant with the rules is not that they are wilful but that they are unable to do so. A sanction will make matters worse and will not make them more likely to get a job; in other words, it is a completely counterproductive process. In fact, it could be even worse than that, because these people are also the least likely to look into how they can then get a hardship payment or how they can appeal. We get people coming into my office after they have been sanctioned completely unaware of the system and how they go about appealing a sanction or how they go about getting a hardship payment, and that happens despite the work that we do and despite the excellent work that Angus Council’s welfare benefits team do to point people in the right direction.

There are people, particularly those with mental health problems, who simply fall through the cracks, and the danger of not having a unified system is that more and more people will fall through those cracks. Many other Members will have stories of people in similar circumstances. Crucially, however, the Government also did not accept the WPC’s recommendation that they should

“establish a broad independent review of benefit conditionality and sanctions, to investigate whether sanctions are being applied appropriately, fairly and proportionately, in accordance with the relevant Regulations and guidance”

that already exist.

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[Helen Whately]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point.

[Mhairi Black]

rose—

[Helen Whately]

I understand that the hon. Lady wants to intervene, but will she let me make a bit of progress because I have hardly been through two sentences of what I was planning to say. I will, of course, allow her to intervene later, not least because she is so passionate about this subject.

I want to take a step back and talk about the overall system that is in place. We rightly have a safety-net benefits system so that nobody should have to live in abject poverty. This system is taxpayer funded and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West (Conor Burns) argued earlier, we should not forget that the money that funds the system comes from people’s pockets—not just from the wealthiest, but from people who are not well off and those described as “just about managing”. We always need to ensure that the welfare system gets the balance right between supporting those who need help with their income and not taking too much money away from those who do not have a huge amount of money to spend in the first place.

[Mhairi Black]

The statistics show that the price of this sanctions regime as it currently stands and the subsequently overturned decisions is £50 million to the taxpayer. The Bill would change how benefit sanctions are administered. It is not about ripping the system apart, but about trying to make it more efficient precisely because we want to save taxpayers’ money as well as a lot of the hassle that some people have to go through.

[Helen Whately]

The hon. Lady makes the important point that we should look for value for money from Government spending. That is absolutely right, but there seems to be some kind of error that the imposition of sanctions in its own right is all about trying to reduce the amount of money spent on benefits. My understanding of the benefits system is that it is part of a larger welfare system that is attempting to help people get into work. Work is an important aspect of the system and some money is spent to achieve that. It is the whole aim of the system around jobseeker’s allowance, the Work programme and so forth.

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[Helen Whately]

I also have a copy of the Bill to hand and the explanatory notes, and that is indeed what I am speaking about.

I wanted to make sure, however, that I had laid the groundwork on the important role sanctions play in a fair benefits system that is supporting everyone who can work to get into work. That not only reduces the number of people relying on other people’s earnings for income, and not only helps give businesses and public services a much needed supply of workers, but it is generally a good thing for the individuals involved, because we know that work is generally good for us.

A recent paper by the Royal College of Psychiatrists called “Work and mental health” observed that although work can be a stressor for some people in some circumstances, a comprehensive review of the research shows that work is beneficial to health and wellbeing. It says that when people without work are re-employed they have an improvement in health and wellbeing, while further unemployment leads to deterioration. A lack of work is detrimental to health and wellbeing, and the health status of people of all ages who move off welfare benefits improves.

We also know children in working households have better outcomes in academic attainment, training and future employment. Work provides a route out of poverty for families and improves children’s wellbeing and life chances as fewer will grow up in workless households. One of the great successes since 2010 has been the fall in the number of children living in workless households, so there are fewer children living in a household where there is often no routine, no rhythm of work, and no role model showing work is something we can, and should, do.

The hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South mentioned her visit to a jobcentre in South Thanet as part of her work as a member of the Select Committee on Work and Pensions. I have also visited jobcentres in Maidstone and Sittingbourne that serve my constituents and have observed the hard work the staff do to help the people who come to them to get into work. I have been very impressed by my conversations with the work coaches and the active and sincere interest they take in helping their clients get into work—and their celebrations when people succeed, particularly those facing a real challenge to get into work.

[Mhairi Black]

I appreciate what the hon. Lady is saying, and ask her to join me in trying to get that same experience in those jobcentres to become the norm throughout the UK? This Bill seeks to spread that consistency and good quality of staff throughout the UK.

[Helen Whately]

I agree with the hon. Lady that it would be good to have a consistently high standard of support in jobcentres across the country. I do not agree, however, that a Bill is the right way to achieve that. There are other ways of achieving improvement across all the sectors of our public services. I have done an enormous amount of healthcare work, as she might know, and I do not believe that legislating from the top is necessarily the right way to reduce variation and bring everyone up to the level of the best. There are many ways of doing that that do not involve legislation.

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[Kevin Foster]

rose—

[Mhairi Black]

rose—

[Helen Whately]

I will happily give way to my hon. Friend.

[Helen Whately]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I will now happily take a short intervention from the hon. Lady.

[Mhairi Black]

I am genuinely grateful to the hon. Lady for allowing me to intervene. First, I am more than happy for this Bill to be looked at and to have different inputs, so the Government should support it in principle and we can then thrash out in Committee the technicalities of how it can be implemented. Secondly, if the Government are genuinely interested in listening, it might be an idea for the hon. Lady to speak to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. I have been trying for weeks to get a meeting with him to discuss the Bill, but I am yet to have even a reply.

[Helen Whately]

My experience is that the Government are genuinely listening and, as we have heard in many examples today, have repeatedly responded to recommendations about improving the system. There is a continual process of listening and improving. But, no, I do not agree with the principle of the Bill, which is to legislate to address what are essentially problems with the management and implementation of the current system.

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[Anne McLaughlin]

I am going to repeat what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens). The staff at the DWP are supporting the Bill. They want clarity, and they think that they do not have it. They are on the frontline doing the job, so if they think that they do not have that clarity, we should listen to them.

[Mhairi Black]

Is my hon. Friend frustrated, as I am, about the fact that Government Members seem to be applauding themselves for being so good at listening, but they have not listened for the last three hours, while we have told them how the system is not working and why we need the Bill to formalise what should be happening?

[Anne McLaughlin]

Absolutely. As I said at the start, I feel as though I am banging my head off a brick wall. In fact, I think that that might be a better use of my time.

If we are already doing this, the requirement in the Bill for someone’s caring responsibilities to be taken into account when considering a sanction happens already, does it? Tell that to my constituent Claire, a single parent who was summoned to an interview with the jobcentre on a day the following week at 3 pm, the exact time that her six-year-old gets out of school. She asked whether the meeting could be changed to 3.30. No. Could it be changed to earlier in the day? No. Could it be changed to another day? No, it had to be on that day at 3 o’clock, the time that she needed to pick up her child from school. She said, “Should I leave my child there, or should I take my child out early?” She was told, “We don’t care, as long as you get here, and if you do not get here at 3 o’clock on that day, we are sanctioning you.” Were her caring responsibilities taken into account? No. I do not want to hear that that was an incorrect decision or an isolated case. I am sick of hearing that. It was not an isolated case, because we hear about this all the time. I could talk about it until midnight and I would not get through, such is the number of times I have heard about it.

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[The Minister for Employment (Damian Hinds)]

This is an important debate today. I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mhairi Black) for bringing these matters to the Floor of the House for further discussion. I do have very comprehensive responses to the individual line items of the Bill, and it is important that they get an airing, but, because of the way that the debate has gone, there will not be time today to go through them all. I thank my hon. Friends who pulled off the Speaker’s list in order to allow a small amount of time for a Government contribution to this debate. I look forward to speaking to those points when the hon. Lady brings her Bill back to the Floor of the House in due course.

The hon. Lady set the pace today with a very comprehensive and passionate one-hour-and-15 minute speech in which she covered a great deal of the aspect of this debate. As I have said, these are important matters, and it was important that they were brought here today.

We also heard from the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) who speaks for the Opposition. I was not entirely clear, at the end of her speech, where we stood on Labour party policy as regards sanctions, but doubtless we will hear more on that in due course.

We heard from the hon. Member for Angus (Mike Weir), who I believe is a member of the SNP Whips Office, but nevertheless spoke for 15 minutes on a day when his colleague had a private Member’s Bill to introduce. We also heard from the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) at some length.

I thank my hon. Friends on the Government Benches for their contributions to the debate, including my hon. Friends the Members for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson), for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins) and for Torbay (Kevin Foster). We also heard speeches from my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West (Conor Burns), who reminded us of the centrality of the taxpayer in this equation. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer) talked about the benefits of work, and reminded us that sanctions should be used as a last resort. My hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) talked about the importance not only of getting people into work, but of getting people closer to the labour market. She thanked the jobcentre staff in Maidstone and Sittingbourne. My hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Mims Davies) not only thanked her local jobcentre staff, but reminded us of the important work done by all our caseworkers and, in fact, of the importance of casework itself in informing these debates. That is a particular strength of our parliamentary system.

There is much in the Bill that has logic to it and that would, all else being equal, be attractive from a public policy perspective, but I hope to reassure her today that much of what she is calling for is, in practice, already done, while other aspects are achieved in different ways.

[Mhairi Black]

rose—

[Damian Hinds]

The hon. Lady will have to forgive me. She spoke for one hour and 15 minutes, and I have very little time. I am obviously not going to be able to get through all the contents of her Bill in the time available, but I hope she will allow me to begin.

Successive Governments have recognised the key role that sanctions have in the benefits system to encourage people to comply with conditions that will help them move into or closer to work. Much work has been undertaken to ensure all those claiming are clear about their responsibilities when claiming benefits and about the potential impact on their benefits if they fail without good reason to complete a requirement they have agreed to undertake.

Imposing a sanction is not done lightly. We invite those facing a sanction to explain exactly why they failed to meet the requirement, and we take all the circumstances into account to determine whether the requirement was reasonable for that individual and whether they had good reason for not meeting it. We do this in each case, and the proposals in the Bill present nothing new in that regard. Indeed, we have removed references in legislation to what constitutes good cause or good reason precisely to ensure that those making decisions can consider every aspect of an individual’s circumstances, not just those prescribed in a list. It would be a step back to return to having that in legislation.

We are confident that the training and guidance available to decision makers give them the tools to make fair and robust decisions. We have a well-established system of hardship provision for claimants—provision that can be accessed by those who are sanctioned. Where a claimant demonstrates they cannot meet their immediate and most essential needs, they can apply for a hardship payment. We tell claimants regularly about the availability of hardship payments, and we have worked hard to ensure that payments are paid within three days. Work coaches identify claimants they feel would be considered vulnerable for hardship purposes and, where a sanction is imposed, they contact them to instigate the hardship process straightaway.

Not only is our approach to sanctioning claimants considered and fair, but it is a key factor in improving the employment rate and curtailing unemployment. The Department invests significant resource to help people move quickly into employment. As a result, employment, as the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South will know, is up by 2.75 million since 2010, with the number of workless households at a record low.

Evidence shows that sanctions can have a positive effect on behaviour. In “The Jobcentre Plus Offer: Final evaluation report”, published in November 2013, it was noted that 70% of JSA, and over 60% of ESA, claimants say that sanctions make it more likely they will follow the rules. The recent “Universal Credit at Work” evaluation, from December last year, found that 76% of claimants felt that the potential for universal credit to be stopped or reduced encouraged them to meet their conditions. The same report demonstrates that 72% of claimants agreed that the potential for sanctions meant they were more likely to look for, or take steps to prepare for, work.

In addition, qualitative research found that people perceived the claimant commitment as critical to the upkeep of their claim. They were generally very clear about the time they were required to spend on job-search activity and the need for them to evidence this, and about the fact not fulfilling their requirements could result in a sanction.

If I may, I will start to go through the elements of the Bill. The Bill seeks to amend sections of the Welfare Reform Act 2012 concerning the claimant commitment and sanctions, to introduce measures to check a claimant’s circumstances prior to a sanction being considered. A significant proportion of the measures proposed in the Bill are measures the Department already undertakes through guidance. For example, the Department ensures that health issues, caring responsibilities and homelessness are noted and taken into account when dealing with claimants. We ensure work-related requirements are fully explained when they are set, as well as the action the claimant should take if they fail to complete the requirement, and the potential impact on their benefit if they do not. The fact that the claimant’s circumstances and any information provided by them are considered before a sanction is imposed should also be acknowledged.

A huge amount of work has been undertaken following recommendations from the Work and Pensions Committee and, as has been referenced by a number of my hon. Friends, from Matthew Oakley’s review of benefit sanctions, to ensure that our staff, when setting requirements for benefit claimants, do so reasonably. That is especially true, of course, of claimants who are identified as having complex needs or who require additional support to enable them to access DWP benefits and to use DWP services.

In addition, we ensure that claimants are advised about their conditionality requirements and about the associated consequences if they fail to meet them. At the point of the claim, staff clearly explain to claimants what they have to do and what will happen if they fail to do it. This is followed up in writing with the claimant commitment documentation. We ensure all appointment notifications and notifications to participate in mandatory programmes also include these requirements clearly in writing.

Turning to the contents of the Bill, clause 1—