Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will publish the information his Department holds on how many people received jobseeker's allowance (JSA) hardship payments in each year from March 2012 to date; and how many JSA claimants (a) were sanctioned and (b) received hardship payments in each parliamentary constituency or the nearest proxy for constituencies in each such year.

(a) The information requested for the number of JSA sanctions by Parliamentary constituency is published and available at:

https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/

Guidance on how to extract the information required can be found at:

https://sw.stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Stat-Xplore_User_Guide.htm

(b) The latest published information on hardship awards covers the 12 month period from April 2011 to March 2012 can be found at

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/222972/hardship_adhoc_2011_2012.pdf