To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what steps his Department is taking to ensure that people who leave employment for the purposes of obtaining jobseeker’s allowance are not eligible for such allowance. (189102)

The reason that a person’s job came to an end is ascertained from evidence provided by the person themselves and from their employer. When we have evidence that someone may have left employment voluntarily or was dismissed for misconduct we can impose a benefit sanction and prevent jobseeker’s allowance being paid for up to 26 weeks. A sanction means that no jobseeker’s allowance is payable for that period.

All sanction decisions are made by a decision maker on a case by case basis, taking all the available evidence into account. A jobseeker has the right of appeal against a sanction decision.