Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an assessment of the effects of the benefits sanctions and conditionality regime on use of food banks.
We have looked at this issue extensively and we agree with the conclusion reached by the All Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Hunger, that the reasons for food bank use are complex and overlapping. There is no robust evidence that directly links sanctions and Food Bank use.