Chris Stephens – 2022 Speech on Benefit Sanctions

The speech made by Chris Stephens, the SNP MP for Glasgow South West, in Westminster Hall, the House of Commons, on 13 December 2022.

I beg to move,

That this House has considered DWP’s policy on benefit sanctions.

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Pritchard. I refer colleagues to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, particularly my position as chair of the PCS parliamentary group as I will be mentioning some issues that appertain to staff who work in the Department for Work and Pensions. There are three components to what I want to raise this afternoon: the latest figures on sanctions, the policy itself and some of the challenges, and the pressures facing DWP staff.

The latest figures on sanctions are shocking. In my written question 88916, I asked,

“how many benefit claims were subject to sanctions in the last three months for which data is available by constituency; and how much was the (a) total and (b) average sum of benefit income lost by claimants due to sanctions in each constituency.”

Members can refer to that particular written question and answer. In June 2022, just over £34 million was clawed back by the DWP in Great Britain. In July, it was £34.9 million and, in August, it was over £36 million, so the figures are increasing month on month. In Scotland, the August figure was £2.3 million, and in Glasgow South West the figure was £57,000. The average deduction in August was £262 a month, which is a considerable sum of money to deduct from someone’s social security. The figures suggest that the aggressive attitude we saw between 2013 and 2015 is back among us. The raising of the administrative earnings threshold means that 600,000 more claimants could be subject to a sanction, and that will include raising the number of people responsible for delivering the benefits being sanctioned, as I will come on to.

We know the history of benefit sanctions. The coalition Government said their Welfare Reform Act 2012 would

“lay the foundation for a clearer and stronger sanctions system that will act as a more effective deterrent to non-compliance.”

They made changes in three main areas. First, they extended the scope of conditionality and sanctions within the same claimant groups. Secondly, they increased the length of sanctions for certain groups. Thirdly, they introduced the concept of escalating sanctions, with longer sanction periods for second and third sanctionable failures within a 12-month period.

However, the then Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Amber Rudd, had concluded that three-year sanctions were rarely used and were counterproductive, and ultimately undermined the goal of supporting people into work. The Work and Pensions Committee report in 2018 found that some claimant groups, such as single parents, care leavers and people with health conditions or disabilities, were disproportionately vulnerable to and affected by sanctions.

Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)

A few months ago, a vulnerable constituent contacted me after she had been sanctioned for missing an appointment, despite being assured that she did not need to attend it for very good and sensitive reasons. She was an older woman who had been through extreme trauma and who had no access to the internet and no mobile phone credit. Does my hon. Friend agree that a more humanised approach must be taken by the DWP?

Chris Stephens

I thank my good and hon. Friend for that intervention. I will mention similar specific case studies, and there are clear questions for the Department to answer on this matter.

Going back to the Work and Pensions Committee 2018 report, it criticised the fact that a sanction incurred under one conditionality regime continues to apply even if the claimant’s circumstances change and they are no longer able or required to look for work. The report said that the sanction serves no purpose in such circumstances, and the Work and Pensions Committee recommended that it be cancelled. It further criticised the fact that the decision to impose a sanction is made by an independent decision maker

“who has never met the claimant and who cannot be expected to understand fully the circumstances that led to them to fail to comply.”

It therefore recommended that work coaches should be able to recommend

“whether a sanction should be imposed”.

The Government responded to the report and each of the Work and Pensions Committee’s recommendations in January 2019. They agreed to evaluate the effectiveness of reforms to welfare conditionality and sanctions, and said that it would be focused on whether sanctions within the universal credit regime are effective at supporting claimants to search for work. The Government said they would look to publish the results in spring 2019, but that did not happen, and DWP Ministers were still saying in July 2020 that the Department was committed to conducting an evaluation and that it would look to so by the end of 2020. In January 2022, however, The Guardian reported that the Department for Work and Pensions had refused a freedom of information request from Dr David Webster to release a copy of the evaluation.

In February, it was reported to the Lords that the Department had not published its evaluation of the effectiveness of universal credit sanctions because it lacked robust legacy data. The former Secretary of State told the Work and Pensions Committee—in fact, it was in answer to the Chair, the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms), who is present—that she had noted that the evaluation had been commissioned by a previous Administration, and she explained that the notion of a sanction acts not only through its imposition on a claimant but, importantly, through its effect as a deterrent. That raises a couple of questions.

Sir Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his points about the Select Committee’s report, and I pay tribute to him for his work on this subject. I understand that his membership on the Committee will shortly come to an end, but I thank him very much for all his work.

The hon. Gentleman will have heard the new Secretary of State say that he will want to have a fresh look at whether some of the things that the Department has refused to publish in the past should have been published. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that this particular report should be high on that list of priorities?

Chris Stephens

It should be among the highest. I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for his very kind words, which I appreciate. I have enjoyed working with him, and he chairs the Committee very effectively indeed. He is absolutely correct to say there is a real question about reports that are currently unpublished but should be published, and I will come to some of them in my remarks.

I would argue that the dugs in the street—or the dogs in the street, for those not from Scotland—could give us a comprehensive picture of sanctions and their effects on people. When I secured the debate, Feeding Britain and the Independent Food Aid Network asked for case studies and examples. I raised one with the Secretary of State at the Select Committee hearing about a Glasgow South West constituent who has been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome and severe anxiety, and who has extreme difficulty communicating with others. The local jobcentre applied a sanction after she failed to attend in-person appointments, despite the fact that, as part of a claim for employment and support allowance, it was agreed three years ago that reasonable adjustments would have to be made and that telephone meetings would be arranged for her. It raises the issue of the financial losses that occur, but the Department for Work and Pensions argued that there was no change of circumstances and that no sick notes were handed in.

We also have the example of an individual in Motherwell. A young mother who had escaped domestic violence was sanctioned for failing to attend an appointment, despite the fact that she had advised the Department for Work and Pensions that she needed to care for her autistic child on that particular day.

In the city of Liverpool, clients have commented that DWP job coach appointments have come through to their phone journals at times when they had no credit for data or access to wi-fi. By the time that each was able to afford to that phone data, they had missed the appointment and been sanctioned. Digital exclusion will increasingly affect clients who are unable to afford a basic smartphone and/or a contract for data access. They then face longer journeys to their jobcentre as a result of one of the busiest jobcentres in that city, Toxteth, being due to relocate, making access harder for local people.

In Coventry, we are advised that the vast majority of sanctions are due to people not attending an appointment, but many are now told of their appointments through an online journal so, again, people with no access to internet are being told that they are going to be sanctioned.

In Somerset, we hear of the case of someone with severe mental health issues and anxiety, whose job coach assured her that any correspondence would go to the principal carer. Ordinarily, she was informed of her appointments via a journal entry. The job coach cancelled a planned appointment and arranged a new one, but put it on that job coach’s to-do list, not through the online journal. This is an area that has to be looked at, because that person was subject to a sanction.

Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)

Will the hon. Member give way?

Chris Stephens

I give way to my fellow Select Committee member.

Debbie Abrahams

I congratulate the hon. Member on securing this debate, and on all his work on the Select Committee. Is he as worried as I am that this is just a further iteration of the DWP sanctions issues going back to 2012? I particularly remember David Clapson, who was the first case that I came across—a former soldier who was sanctioned. He could not afford to keep his refrigerator on, his insulin went off, and he died as a consequence. Is the hon. Member as concerned as I am about sanctions potentially resulting in deaths?

Chris Stephens

I thank the hon. Lady, who is a good friend, for her intervention. She has done fantastic work in this area, which I very much support. I am concerned about the effects that sanctions have, and that the whole deductions policy has. The effect that taking money away from people has on cost of living payments is another real issue, which I will come on to.

I would also add that, based on exchanges I have had with Ministers past and present, people can be sanctioned if they refuse a zero-hours contract job. Someone could be in a position where they have secure work, but less hours. The Department is encouraging people to increase their earnings, so if that person refuses a zero-hours contract and insecure work, they will be subject to a sanction.

Then, we have the position of the DWP staff themselves. Some have received letters saying that they need to increase their earnings. It is no wonder that they are going on strike, is it? There is an anomaly here: many thousands of DWP staff are paid so poorly that they are claiming the same benefits they deliver, while sharing an office with someone who could then sanction them because they have not increased their earnings or their hours. I find that completely and utterly bizarre, and I hope that Ministers will look at PCS’s concerns and maybe treat the situation of DWP staff separately. It seems to me that the Department that is delivering social security should not be taking social security away from the people who are delivering it.

Food banks across the Independent Food Aid Network see a newly hungry person referred as the result of a sanction every three days on average, so I have a number of questions for the Minister. Does he agree that the current sanctions policy is forcing people to use food banks if they are not to go hungry? To that end, will the Minister undertake to publish the Department’s evidence review on the drivers of the need for food aid, which was promised two years ago, yet remains under wraps? As the Chair of the Select Committee, the right hon. Member for East Ham, has outlined, that is one of the reports that remains unpublished, and it is something that we want to see.

The Department’s own serious case panel agreed at its October meeting that

“there should be further collaborative work undertaken through the appropriate governance routes to explore strengthening the mechanisms which protect our most vulnerable customers in respect of sanctions.”

Will the Minister explain to us what that collaborative work will look like, and when it will take place? Will he also undertake to commission a study into any correlation that exists between the distance someone lives from their nearest Jobcentre Plus and the likelihood of them being sanctioned; the prevalence of poor mental health and vulnerability within households on universal credit and the likelihood of them being sanctioned; and the prevalence of digital exclusion within households on universal credit and the likelihood of them being sanctioned? We know that the Department has closed jobcentres; we also know that has made it more difficult for people to attend jobcentres and that they may be sanctioned for not attending a jobcentre.

Will the Minister also provide an update on the Department’s most recent trials of the yellow card early warning system in two areas, including any plans to roll out that system further afield? I do not accept that there should be conditionality in the system, but if we are going to have conditionality it seems sensible to me that there should be a yellow card system, or some sort of warning system, in place before the decision is made to issue a sanction. Given that the present system seems to rely heavily on individual discretion, which is resulting in people becoming destitute, does he agree that a fully national roll-out of a yellow card system is needed sooner rather than later?

As I have indicated, people being subject to a sanction could mean—indeed, has meant—that they do not receive their cost of living payment, but that decision could be reversed if they appeal and win their appeal. However, it seems to me that if there are 6,600 universal credit claimants who have missed out on that first cost of living payment because of sanctions, the Department for Work and Pensions should look at that situation. It seems to be a double punishment. The cost of living payment is in place so that people can meet their basic living needs and if they are sanctioned, it appears that there is something very wrong.

Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)

I agree with my hon. Friend that sanctioning people on the lowest of incomes at any time is grossly unfair, but at this time, when even many people in well-paid work are struggling to pay their bills, it is obscene. I had not been aware, so I thank him for highlighting it, that some people are not getting the cost of living payment that the Government say we need to survive.

I congratulate my hon. Friend not only on securing this debate, but on asking the questions that led me to discover that this summer £153,000 was taken from my constituents by DWP sanctions. Will he join me in saying to his constituents, as I am now saying to my constituents in Glasgow North East, “If you have your benefits sanctioned, do not take it lying down. Contact me and I will fight this for you, because this is wrong and nobody should have to live on less than the minimum income”?

Chris Stephens

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention and she is absolutely right. We are in a cost of living crisis. During the pandemic, the Department rightly took the view not to sanction people. We are now in a cost of living crisis, and if we did not sanction people during the pandemic, we should not sanction them during a cost of living crisis either. That seems to me to be a sensible approach.

My hon. Friend is also correct in highlighting the great work that constituency office staff do in helping the most vulnerable to see off these attacks. We have all dealt with cases of people being sanctioned; I think that every single constituency office across these islands has had to deal with that.

In closing, I will mention some of the staff concerns. There are concerns that jobcentres have been told by senior managers and Ministers to “up their game” when it comes to sanctions. There are very real concerns about the culture and certainly there is a view that there needs to be a mind-shift towards supporting people in what is important and that punishment has not achieved anything. There is very limited and patchy evidence that sanctions actually work.

There is inter-office competition, whereby different offices’ statistics are compared, pushing for higher sanction and deferral rates, and labour market decision makers are using box-ticking exercises. Pressure is put on the work coaches themselves, through tighter timescales and pushing people to physically attend the jobcentre, with the harms that causes the long-term employed. There are also real effects on disabled claimants who are thrown into a group of those most likely to get a sanction, and the relative rate of sanctions for claimants with disabilities—all of that really needs to be explored further.

Sanctions appear to be back with a vengeance, and that shift of approach requires parliamentary scrutiny. As someone who believes that conditionality has not worked, I think we need a change in approach to put the claimant and their needs at the heart of the social security system. The Department must accept the Select Committee’s recommendations to introduce either a yellow card system or another warning system, because failure to do so would mean the Department going back on its word in how it responded to previous Select Committee reports. I look forward to hearing whether colleagues have to say, including whether they accept—as I do—the need for change and reform.