Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to her Department's letter to the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee dated 15 July 2022, for what reason her Department was unable to assess the deterrent effect of benefit sanctions using the evaluation of benefit sanctions previously commissioned by her Department.

We no longer plan to publish a report on the sanctions evaluation. This is because a sanction acts not only through its imposition on a claimant but importantly also through its effect as a deterrent. We were unable to assess the deterrent effect and therefore this research does not present a comprehensive picture of sanctions. The reason this analysis is unable to assess the deterrent effect is that all claimants in UC intensive regime are subject to mandatory conditions. Given this, it was not possible to assess the current system relative to a non-mandatory system.