Benefit Sanctions

Dr Rupa Huq, the Labour MP for Ealing Central and Acton, asked the Minister for Employment, Alison McGovern, what assessment she has made of trends in the number of benefit sanctions in the last five years. In her response, the Minister provided detailed statistics on the universal credit sanction rate. She stated that the rate was 3.17% in May 2019, reduced considerably during the pandemic, and gradually returned to 3.51% by November 2021. The rate then continued to rise, reaching a peak of 7.29% in October 2023, but is now falling, with a rate of 6.17% in May 2024. Dr Huq followed up by citing recent research by Gingerbread, which found that a high percentage of sanctions have been misapplied to single parents, not because they have not met the job search requirements but due to missed meetings for reasons connected with childcare. She mentioned the case of Max, a bereaved single dad of two, who had his sanction overturned, which involved a fairly challenging process. Dr Huq asked the Minister to look into the possibility of overhauling the "mess of a system" that was left behind by the previous government. In her response, the Minister thanked Dr Huq and Gingerbread for their work on this issue. She acknowledged that there have always been, and always will be, conditions attached to social security, but stated that the past 14 years have shown what happens when a government is more interested in blaming people and creating cheap headlines than offering real help. The Minister noted that in Labour's manifesto, they committed to review universal credit so that it makes work pay and tackles poverty, and the report by Gingerbread will also help inform their child poverty taskforce.