Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill

Debate between Mike Weir and Drew Hendry

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

[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.

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is not appropriate for somebody to be sanctioned in circumstances such as those of a constituent of mine, who did not turn up for a meeting because the letter about it was sent to the No. 5 in a different street to his?

[Mike Weir]

It is absolutely incredible that such a thing could happen, which just goes to show the difficulties in the system as it works at the moment.

Many Government Members have claimed that international evidence clearly shows that benefit regimes supported by conditionality reduce unemployment and that the regime in the UK is clear and effective in promoting positive behaviours to help claimants back into work. However, a recent study funded by the Economic and Social Research Council found that most claimants’ experience of welfare conditionality and sanctions was a wholly negative one, creating widespread anxiety and feelings of disempowerment. That is hardly a shock to those of us who have had to deal with the issue when they have turned to us for help.

More telling, however, is that a Government-backed employment project run by Oxford City Council and the DWP found in June that cutting benefit entitlements makes it less likely that unemployed people will find a job. It said:

“Conventional wisdom suggests that taking money off benefit claimants (eg by sanctions or cutting benefit rates) acts as a financial incentive to get a job. Our analysis says that the opposite is in fact true”.