Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make it his Department's policy to (a) collect data on the number of people subject to a benefit sanction who have used food banks at any time over the duration of that sanction and (b) publish that data.

The Department does not make direct referrals to food banks; therefore no data are collected. There are no plans to change this approach.