Social Security Benefits: Disqualification

(asked on 3rd February 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 2 February 2022 to Question 113818 on Social Security Benefits: Disqualification, whether her Department has commissioned further research into benefit sanctions.


Answered by
David Rutley Portrait
David Rutley
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
This question was answered on 8th February 2022

The decision not to publish the sanctions evaluation report was made on 15 October 2020 as part of routine departmental business, which is not required to be minuted.

The 2019 sanctions evaluation used UC administrative data to look at the impact a sanction has on an individual’s likelihood of entering work and on their earnings once they are in work. It was not an assessment of poverty levels. Currently we have no plans to undertake further research on this aspect of sanctions.

Way to Work is a drive to support 500,000 people into work swiftly. As part of this campaign we are changing the period in which a claimant can limit their job search to their usual occupation to promote wider employment opportunities, supporting people into work more quickly. We know the longer a person is out of work, the harder it is for them to get back into work.

Claimants on work-related benefits are generally expected to undertake certain activities which help them to prepare for, look for and move into work. We have strong UK-specific evidence through Randomised Control Trials and from a broad body of international studies that benefit systems supported by conditionality are effective at moving people into work. Sanction on UC remain low at 0.78%.

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