Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill

Patrick Grady Excerpts

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

[Conor Burns]

I have heard that point be made a number of times. The hon. Gentleman might wish to intervene on the Minister later, because he will be in a better position to explain the Government’s position than I, a humble Back-Bench bag carrier, am.

[Patrick Grady]

If the hon. Gentleman cannot speak for the Government, does he at least agree in principle with my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) that the phone calls should be free?

[Conor Burns]

The Minister is hearing these points being made, and he will give both hon. Members a clear answer on the Government’s policy in due course.

I shall now move on to the eighth stage of the process that needs to be gone through before a sanction is applied. If a claimant requests more information about the decision, an explanation will be given by the jobcentre or contact centre. When a claimant makes such a request, they are contacted by a decision maker and a full, detailed explanation is provided.

In the ninth stage, if the claimant disputes or challenges the decision, a decision maker will have the case, and any additional information provided by the claimant, reviewed. If the decision is overturned, notification is issued to the claimant and arrears of benefit paid. If the decision is not overturned, the case is referred to the dispute resolution team for a full mandatory reconsideration.

In the tenth step, following a request for a mandatory reconsideration, the original decision will be looked at again, taking into account any additional information provided by the claimant. A mandatory reconsideration notice will be sent to the claimant to notify them of the outcome. The letter also includes information on how to appeal against the decision. One of the points the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South makes is that sanctions are causing people to become impoverished and that they ostensibly disregard their situation and position, yet claimants who are sanctioned can apply for hardship payments equivalent to 60% of their normal benefit payment. JSA claimants who are seriously ill or pregnant can receive 80% if they qualify for hardship payments.

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[Lucy Frazer]

I will make a little progress.

I want to comment on three points that were made by the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South in her speech. First, she identified that she was concerned about the facelessness of the decision maker, but there are many systems in other areas in which the decision maker does not know the individual. Many immigration decisions are made by someone who does not know the individual. Our judicial system rests on the basis that the judge is not familiar with the individual case and assesses those cases on the evidence.

[Patrick Grady]

rose—

[Mike Weir]

rose—

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[Anne McLaughlin]

Absolutely. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South on proposing this Bill, and I thank her on behalf of many of my constituents. If the Bill is successful, it will provide some protection. If not, it will at least have raised the issue again, and people out there will know that somebody in here cares about what happens to them.

I will start—I say “start,” but I have been going on for quite a while—by offering the treat that the hon. Member for Bournemouth West is looking for by arguing against the entire sanctions regime. I challenge him to respond to my arguments. I saw Government Members being given a sheet of paper with a list of suggested interventions, but I have experience, and lots of it, on my side, so challenge away.

I will argue on three levels. First, there is the financial argument. I will use only factual arguments, and the sanctions regime costs us more to run than it saves—that is before we look at the long-term hidden costs. Secondly, there are the academic arguments. Conditionality in the welfare system does not work. It is not me making that argument; it is academics. I will share their findings, and let us see whether Government Members have actual evidence to the contrary—not opinions, but evidence. Thirdly, I will make the moral argument, and here Government Members can make a counter-argument because we all have a different moral compass—morality can be subjective, a matter of opinion. My opinion, for what it is worth, is that anybody who thinks it is right that we sanction the benefits of people who are already in poverty needs their compass reprogrammed pronto.

[Patrick Grady]

I thank my hon. Friend, who is my MP, for giving way. Is it not ironic that we interrupted today’s debate to talk about the UK’s response to global poverty and the sustainable development goals? Does she recognise, as I hope the Minister does, that the Government have a duty to meet those sustainable development goals and eradicate poverty here at home, too? In fact, as we have heard in all the testimony today, the sanctions regime makes that poverty worse.

[Anne McLaughlin]

I agree with everything my constituent says. On the financial argument, let us look at the hidden costs. We do not know how much those hidden costs amount to, but it does not take a genius.

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[Anne McLaughlin]

No, I will not let the hon. Lady in again.

It does not take a genius to work out that it will cost more if we put people out on the street. My hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South cited the figure from Crisis, which has done some studies. It found that 21% of the people it spoke to said that they became homeless as the result of a sanction. How much is it going to cost to rehouse people and to deal with the health and mental health problems that result from their having nothing, losing their home and being on the street? All sorts of figures are being batted around, but according to a story in Scotland’s Daily Record, the National Audit Office has said that, when the figures are added up, it costs £135 million more per year to implement benefits sanctions than we save by them. I think that that proves the financial argument.

On the academic argument, I have a report on welfare conditionality from the Universities of Glasgow and York. I am happy to send it to people if they want to read it. The report shows that conditionality in the welfare system does not work, if by “working” we mean that it helps people to move into employment. It does not help people into employment. The first wave of findings found that, in all the research on the impact of the current sanctioning regime, only one individual thought that sanctioning made them more active, which is less than 2% of those interviewed. Later, I will read out what somebody said.

[Patrick Grady]

The hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) mentioned the need for a money resolution if this Bill is to progress further, but the Government have not tabled a money resolution for the last private Member’s Bill that was approved by the House. Even if we have a vote and the House gives this Bill a Second Reading, there is no guarantee that the Government will let it progress any further.

[Anne McLaughlin]

That is absolutely correct, and what does that say about the democracy of this place?

The fact is that most of the respondents in the research were already keen to find work—most people are—and even the practitioners who are imposing the sanctions regime are sceptical about its benefits. As we have already heard, DWP staff are under incredible pressure. When I spoke about the aspirations they have to reach, the hon. Member for Bournemouth West challenged me to provide the name of the whistleblower who told me all about this, and then just hope that they stay in employment. I will not do that, but I will point him to an article on a journalist’s website called “Common Space”, in which Fraser Stewart talks about how he gave up his job and became unemployed because he could not bear to keep up with the targets or aspirations that were set for him. The hon. Gentleman can have a look at that, although I am surprised he does not know about it already.

I was glad to read the research to back up what I have always known, which is that conditionality does not work. I do not think people have to be that bright to see why it does not work to have somebody standing over them telling them, “You must do it”. I wonder how many of the Conservative Members who have spoken today require a stick to be wielded over them for them to go out to find work. [Interruption.] They have the Whips—that is a very good point—but how many of them went out into the world of work and said, “I’m not going to bother doing this”. What makes them so special, because they will all say, “No, no, I always wanted to work”? I was always keen to work, but so are most people. Most people have aspirations.