Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what her policy is on claimants of universal credit being sanctioned where they have (a) left a job and (b) been dismissed from a workplace where they were (i) treated unfairly, (ii) asked to carry out work without training and (iii) asked to work extra hours with no extra pay.
Claimants can be sanctioned for leaving a job or being dismissed from the workplace for misconduct without good reason. However, we recognise that sometimes there are very good reasons for a claimant to act in a certain way, and that is why claimants are given every opportunity to explain why their employment ended, or whether there were particular mitigating circumstances in each case, before a decision on a sanction is made. A Decision Maker then takes all the claimant’s individual circumstances and any evidence of good reason for leaving employment into account before making a decision.