Social Security Benefits

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many people have been disqualified from benefits for 13 weeks under the two strikes policy in each of the last five years for which figures are available. (262825)

The information available is in the table:

	Number of cases where sanction applies	Number of cases where sanction applied to subsequent benefit entitlement	Number of cases where sanction in abeyance—benefit not in payment
2003-04	72	58	14
2004-05	79	48	31
2005-06	121	74	47
2006-07	104	46	58
2007-08	69	30	39

Volume 490: debated on Monday 30 March 2009