Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 6 December 2016 to Question 55470, if he will (a) make it his Department's policy to make regular contact with people who are subject to a benefit sanction in order to discern whether they have used food banks at any time over the duration of the sanction, (b) make it his Department's policy to offer assistance with an application for a hardship payment to individuals who are identified as food bank users and (c) regularly publish data related to the use of food banks by people subject to benefit sanctions.

As part of providing on-going employment-related support, work coaches maintain contact with claimants who have been sanctioned. They also offer information about how to challenge a sanction decision and about the availability and application process for hardship payments. Usage of any other form of assistance is not needed to assess a person’s ongoing entitlement to benefit and so we do not need to collect this information.

Claimants are provided with information about hardship payments at the point at which a referral is made to a decision maker and also following the application of a sanction. This includes assistance, if required, with applying for a hardship payment. This support is provided to all claimants, regardless of whether individual’s volunteer information on assistance received from another source. A person does not need to disclose whether they have used any particular source of assistance, in order to qualify for hardship payments.