Welfare Reform Bill

I thank the noble Baroness for this amendment. It gives me the opportunity, I hope, to clarify the matter, because I think that she quoted me as saying that within the JSA regime, the starting point for sanction would be a letter. I shall deal with that point directly. However, I think that the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, was reverting to the generality of the clause about the impact of these sanctions for violence. Yes, it is meant to apply not only to Jobcentre Plus staff but to contractors who work on our behalf. As for the letter that the noble Lord sent me, operational letters are automatically passed on to the agencies. However, I shall recover his letter and ensure that he gets a detailed response directly from me. The clause introduces a new benefit sanction for those customers who fail to attend their mandatory appointments within the jobseeker’s allowance regime. Such appointments include, for example, the fortnightly job search review where customers demonstrate that they are available for and have been actively seeking work. This is applied only to those groups who are on JSA because they are deemed to be actively seeking and available for work. The amendment proposes that JSA customers are given a warning letter and an explanation of the act of non-compliance prior to the issue of the sanction. I shall explain why this step is not appropriate for this client group. Mandatory appointments with Jobcentre Plus are a core element of the JSA regime. The appointments act as a gateway to the support on offer to help customers back to work, and they act as a crucial checkpoint in ensuring that customers are actively seeking and are available for work. The requirement to attend appointments and the consequences for failure to attend are clearly communicated to customers at the start of a claim and repeated at regular intervals throughout the course of the claim. As customers are fully informed of this key commitment, if they still fail to attend, they could be trying to avoid their responsibility actively to seek work. There therefore needs to be a clear link between the customer’s responsibilities under the JSA regime and the consequences of failing to comply. We believe that sending customers a warning letter before a sanction would only weaken this link between the responsibility to attend appointments and the right to receive benefit. A different approach to sanctions for other client groups, notably the progression-to-work group, will apply. That is the point focused on by the noble Baroness. These groups and the progression-to-work group will, for the purposes of the pathfinders, consist of lone parents with young children claiming employment and support allowance who are not required to be actively seeking and available for work. It would therefore not be appropriate to apply this sanctions regime to those claimants. We plan to test the effectiveness of a more progressive regime based on the principles recommended by Professor Gregg in the pathfinders. He suggested that the sanctions regime needs to be clearly understood. The noble Baroness made that point as well. We will use different ways to encourage re-engagement and will always offer speedy and simple routes to customers to end any sanctions imposed. We plan to follow that approach. Our model for the pathfinders is not yet fixed as we wish to discuss our plans in more detail with the stakeholders. However, our current plans particularly focus on the small number of people who repeatedly fail to meet the requirements that apply to them. We do this by progressively increasing the impact the greater the number of consecutive failures there are. Therefore, if a person fails to meet a work-focused interview, work-related activity or work-focused health-related assessment requirement for the first time, we do not plan to apply a financial sanction, unlike now. In line with Professor Gregg’s recommendations, we will issue a formal and final written warning. This should significantly reduce the number of people who receive a financial sanction in the pathfinder areas. Obviously we will evaluate those pathfinders in due course and see whether a wider rollout of that approach would be appropriate. I assure the Committee that the sanctioning regime in JSA incorporates safeguards. If customers show good cause—and we have debated that extensively—for failing to attend the appointment, a sanction will not be applied. Further, if customers are sanctioned, they will have the opportunity to claim a hardship payment, which we have talked about, if they or a partner is in a vulnerable group; for example if they have a medical condition or are responsible for a child. Customers will also be able to appeal the imposition of the sanction. I hope that that has clarified our position for the noble Baroness and that she feels able to withdraw the amendment.