Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Paul Burstow and Esther McVey

Monday 9th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

As the hon. Lady will know, we are always improving what we do and always making things better. We brought in the Matt Oakley review to look at better communications, and we work with claimants always to ensure that sanctions are applied only correctly. We know that the vast majority of people work within the system. For employment and support allowance claimants, over 99.4% work within the rules, and with jobseeker’s allowance claimants, it is over 94%. It has to work, but we always look to see how we can get it better.

[Paul Burstow (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)]

Given how poorly served people with mental health problems are by the Work programme, and given the fact that the Minister told me in an answer that the Department does not currently have available to it information about the proportion of people with a mental health problem who are sanctioned, is it not time that the Government did that research and made sure that we had back-to-work programmes to help people with mental health problems?

[Esther McVey]

We know that over 99.4% people on ESA and with a mental health condition are not sanctioned, so only 0.6% are. Again, we look to see how we work with people; and for very vulnerable people there is clear guidance on what counts as good cause, so they would know how and why they would not be sanctioned. We always know we need to do more. We have various pilots going on that seek better to understand people with mental health conditions.