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Benefit Sanctions

Volume 754: debated on Monday 7 October 2024

In May 2019 the universal credit sanction rate was 3.17%. It reduced considerably during the pandemic, gradually returning to 3.51% by November 2021. It then continued to rise, reaching a peak of 7.29% in October 2023, but it is now falling, with a rate of 6.17% in May 2024.

According to recent research by Gingerbread, a high percentage of sanctions have been misapplied to single parents, not because they have not met the job search requirements but because of missed meetings for reasons connected with childcare. Max, a bereaved single dad of two, had his sanction overturned, which involved a fairly challenging process. Will my hon. Friend please look into the possibility of overhauling the mess of a system that was left behind by that lot over there?

I thank my hon. Friend for her question and, through her, I would like to thank Gingerbread for its work on this issue. There have always been, and always will be, conditions attached to social security, but the past 14 years show what happens when we have a Government who are more interested in blaming people and creating cheap headlines than offering real help. In our manifesto, Labour committed to review universal credit so that it makes work pay and tackles poverty, and the report that Gingerbread has written will also help inform our child poverty taskforce.