Sanctioning of Benefit Recipients

Yvonne Fovargue Excerpts

Thursday 3rd April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

No one disputes the fact that there is a place for sanctions in the benefits system, because there has to be a fair way of dealing with the minority of claimants who deliberately and repeatedly fail to comply with requirements. However, I think that everyone would agree that sanctions must be fair, that they must not be unduly harsh or punitive and that they cannot be based on information that is inaccurate or misunderstood. For many people who are sanctioned, their understanding of the regime fails the test.

Ultimately, we all want to get people back into the labour market if they are fit and able and there are jobs for them. Sanctions that are disproportionate and unfair, ironically, will have precisely the opposite effect; they impoverish people and leave them less able to move from welfare to work. The sanctions regime was ramped up in late 2012. As we have heard, the imposition of a sanction means the temporary suspension of jobseeker’s allowance for a minimum of four weeks. As the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) said, it is different for universal credit, which is “until engagement” plus seven days, which seems a lot fairer. The maximum sanction period is three years. Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice, has rightly described that as “excessively harsh”.

I understand that the Government like to see themselves as taking a tough and no-nonsense approach, which implies that large numbers of claimants are really benefit cheats, but the fact is that, in my constituency and many others, overly harsh sanctions mean that families are going without essentials. A minimum of four weeks without benefits can lead to desperate measures, and many of my constituents are visiting food banks for the first time. I have evidence of that. Three advisers from my local citizens advice bureau were recently offered employment by the council on the welfare support desk in Wigan Life Centre. During February and March, those three workers assessed 560 applications for food bank parcels as genuine. Of those, 130—in only two months—were identified as stemming solely from the application of a benefit sanction. Ironically, I think that those were the lucky ones. They were not like the young man with learning difficulties who came to see me in my constituency office. He had been eating out of bins for three weeks because he did not understand the letter he received and thought that his benefits had been taken off him permanently. He had got the letter too late to attend the interview.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg) that the sanctions are also counter-productive. Disproportionately long sanctions create barriers to the search for work. The four-week minimum means that claimants spend more time dealing with acute needs, such as obtaining food and heating, than looking for a job. Bureau advisers have reported to me that they see many clients who have been sanctioned spending a significant amount of time seeking alternative means to pay for essentials, such as food and utilities. Indeed, they are being forced into the hands of payday lenders, so they are getting into debt. As the hon. Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Dame Angela Watkinson) said, benefits are not intended to pay debts.

Since the changes of late 2012, the number of people being sanctioned has soared. After the implementation of the new sanctions system in October 2012, there was an 11% rise in sanctions for jobseekers. The most recent full-year data show a 24% year-on-year rise in the number of sanctions for jobseekers. For ESA, the whole year shows an increase of 156%. In the period just after the ESA sanctions regime changed in December 2012, there was a 98% increase. That is a huge increase, and I cannot believe that that number of people deliberately did not engage with the system.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South that we need to review the effectiveness of the sanctions regime. If the sanctions are getting more onerous, why are more people being caught by them? Surely we would expect harsher punishments to bring people into line and lessen infractions, if indeed their behaviour is deliberate. What better evidence is there that these reforms are being driven by cost-cutting targets and have little to do with helping people to find work? Jobcentre staff are incentivised to get people off the dole; they should be rewarded for getting people back into employment.

There would be more faith in the sanctions regime if it were based on good decision making and proper assessments of individuals, but all too frequently people cannot comply with it. I was recently given a case by my local citizens advice bureau. A mother attended with her 19-year-old son, who did not engage with the interview. He looked down, and he patently could not read the letters he had received. His mother answered all the questions. Every time he was asked a question, he just looked at his mum for an answer; he clearly could not understand. He lives at home with his parents. In July 2013, he applied for universal credit, which he was awarded. However, he did not attend his interview in September, or his seven other interviews, so he got a low-level sanction. On 9 December, he got a medium-level sanction. In all this time, his mum had not seen the letters. He obviously could not read them and did not understand what was going on.

Eventually, his mum found the letters, inquired of the jobcentre what was going on, and found that her son had been sanctioned for 891 days. She accompanied him to interviews in February and March but was told that nothing could be done about lifting the sanctions. He went to my local citizens advice bureau, which is in touch with the specialist support unit to establish whether this is consistent with regulations and whether anything can be done. It is obvious that the people at Jobcentre Plus did not have the time to assess this young man, to put it generously, and did not see that he would not understand any of the sanctions letters or requirements on complying for work.

There is plenty of other evidence of poor communication. In Wigan, a significant number of ESA recipients applying for food parcels have complained that the letters notifying them of the work capability assessment were not received until after the date of the assessment, causing them to be sanctioned. Others have said that they could not attend because they had a hospital appointment and only learned of the sanction when their JSA failed to arrive.

We clearly need a better understanding of the individual needs of claimants. If we are going to apply this sort of regime, Jobcentre Plus staff need to have the time and the ability to assess the people who are applying for benefits and ensure that the sanctions are fair. There are two ways of encouraging people into work—the carrot and the stick. It does not seem fair that on many occasions the wealthy get the carrot of tax cuts and the people on benefits get the stick of unduly harsh sanctions.