Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many benefit sanctions have been issued to people in (a) Jarrow constituency, (b) South Tyneside and (c) the North East in receipt of (i) jobseekers allowance, (ii) employment and support allowance and (iii) universal credit in each of the last five years.
The available information on Jobseeker’s Allowance, Employment and Support Allowance, Income Support and Universal Credit sanction decisions by parliamentary constituency is published and can be accessed at: https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/
Guidance on how to extract the information required can be found at:
https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started.html
The Department publishes quarterly statistics on sanctions, including a breakdown by sanction referral reason, as part of the Benefit Sanction Statistics publication:
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/jobseekers-allowance-sanctions
We take a number of steps to make sure our decisions are fair. When considering whether a sanction is appropriate, a Decision Maker will take all the claimant’s individual circumstances, including any health conditions or disabilities and any evidence of good cause, into account before deciding whether a sanction is warranted.