Powerful committee of MPs slam ministers for 'pointlessly cruel' benefits sanctions regime
3 min read
MPs have called on the Government to urgently reform the "pointlessly cruel" regime of sanctions introduced as part of the Universal Credit system.
In a damning report, members of the powerful Work and Pensions Select Committee said the Tory/Lib Dem coalition government "had little or no understanding of the likely impact" of the tougher measures when they introduced them in 2012.
Under the changes, claimants can lose up to 100% of their benefit if they fail to fulfil a "work-related commitment" such as turning up for a job interview or training on time.
However, the committee's inquiry discovered that since the new sanctions were introduced, ministers had failed to carry out any evaluation of whether they were effective at encouraging people to get back into employment.
Citizens Advice workers told the committee that sanctioned claimants "more commonly borrowed money, cut back spending on food and other essentials, or fell into arrears with bills" rather than increased their income through finding work.
The report said: "The policy appears to be nothing other than arbitrarily punitive. The high rate of sanctions under Universal Credit only increases the urgency with which the Government must understand fully the effect of the 2012 reforms.
"Crucially, if such research suggests changes are required, the Government must be prepared to respond accordingly."
The committee heard from Jen, a wheelchair user who slept on friends' sofas and her college library for a year, including through her exams, because she had been erroneously sanctioned and it took that long to resolve it.
Another claimant, Luke, told the committee how he was wrongly sanctioned after missing an appointment because he had been admitted to hospital with severe epileptic seizures.
Committee chairman Frank Field said: "We have heard stories of terrible and unnecessary hardship from people who’ve been sanctioned. They were left bewildered and driven to despair at becoming, often with their children, the victims of a sanctions regime that is at times so counter-productive it just seems pointlessly cruel.
"While none of them told us that there should be no benefit sanctions at all, it can only be right for the Government to take a long hard look at what is going on. If their stories were rare it would be unacceptable, but the Government has no idea how many more people out there are suffering in similar circumstances. In fact, it has kept itself in the dark about any of the impacts of the major reforms to sanctions introduced since 2012.
"The time is long overdue for the Government to assess the evidence and then have the courage of its reform convictions to say, where it is right to do so, ’this policy is not achieving its aims, it is not working, and the cost is too high: We will change it'."
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