My Lords, I speak enthusiastically in support of Amendment 57, moved with her customary precision and passion by my noble friend Lady Lister. I am pleased that it also has the support of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, the noble Baroness, Lady Manzoor, my noble friend Lord Beecham, and the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, with his particular focus on getting these things sorted out before we get fully into universal credit.
The amendment seeks a full and independent review of sanctions attached to working age benefits, with particular reference to their application to lone parents and disabled claimants. The review should also focus on the effectiveness of sanctions in moving claimants into sustained work. The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, posed three tests for a review, based on timing, remit and even-handed terminology. I think that we have established that the terminology involved is that which the department itself uses. On timing, the issue here is that the hardship and detriment people are suffering because of the sanctions regime is happening to them now. They do not have the time to wait for a fuller, more extended review. On the remit, I doubt whether my noble friend would have great problems in seeing that expanded. We would be interested to know quite how much further detail the noble Lord wants.
The proposition follows a call from the House of Commons DWP Committee in its March 2015 report, referred to by my noble friend. We know the call has been rejected, but we hope that this debate will help the Government to change their mind. This is of course inextricably linked to conditionality issues, which we debated at some length on Wednesday. We can agree that conditionality has long been a component of social safety nets and needs a system to support compliance. But as the amendment makes clear, as did my noble friend in moving it, the system should be applied appropriately, fairly and proportionately, and with a clear focus on improving sustained employment outcomes. It should not be seen as a substitute for effective support to help individuals back into work.
We support the approach that says that the design and application of sanctions need to be considered alongside conditionality and employment support. The three go together. The coalition Government initiated the Oakley review, although as we have heard it was narrow in its remit. It focused on JSA claimants and back to work programmes, but the number of sanctions overwhelmingly associated with the Work Programme represented only some one-third of the total JSA sanctions in 2013.
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So why a review now? There are a number of compelling reasons. The sanctions system was made significantly more onerous in the 2012 welfare reform legislation, with the higher-level sanctions potentially extended to three years. Perhaps the Minister can tell us how many three-year sanctions have been applied. Your Lordships will recall that at the time we were told there would only be a handful. How many have there been? We have JSA sanction levels amounting to 100% of the benefit, and there is a high threshold for access to hardship payments. There has been an unprecedented use of sanctions in recent years, with 6% of all claimants on JSA being sanctioned every month. In the space of less than three years, from October 2012 to 31 March 2015, 971,000 individual JSA claimants have been sanctioned—a truly staggering number.
There is concern that the sanctions system is actually discouraging claimants from staying on benefits. The share of the unemployed who are not claiming JSA continues to rise, meaning that such individuals not only are receiving no financial support but are not receiving any support to get back into work. It is also a matter of concern that a growing number of sanctions are being applied to people who have a health condition that limits their ability to work. The experience of ESA claimants appears to be overwhelmingly negative. Being sanctioned was found to have a series of so-called unintended consequences, pushing individuals into debt and hunger, straining relationships and exacerbating mental health problems.
There is evidence that young people are being disproportionately sanctioned. A report from Sheffield Hallam University, commissioned by Crisis, referred to an emerging evidence base that homeless service users are disproportionately affected by sanctions. They may be twice as likely to be sanctioned as the wider claimant population and this can be due to systemic and personal barriers rather than an unwillingness to comply.
There is also a series of horror stories that are received routinely in the postbags of MPs—reference to which was made when this issue was debated in another place. Specific cases were raised in your Lordships’ House last week and again today, including the harrowing examples given by my noble friends Lady Lister and Lord Beecham. There are always dangers in extrapolating from a few high-profile issues but the breadth of these examples is truly troubling. At the extreme, there are circumstances involving the suicide of claimants, and the department’s case for rejecting information about the circumstances where the claimant was subject to a benefit sanction is, frankly, pretty thin. Policy changes from such incidents are a proper area of inquiry.
There is also concern about the quality of some of the information emanating from the DWP on sanctions statistics. A leaflet had to be withdrawn because of manufactured comments. Changes to the way statistics are presented, as we have heard, have been recommended by the UK Statistics Authority following representations from Frank Field MP in his role as chair of the Select Committee. These touched upon multiple sanctions, where he pointed out that, for the application of more than a million low to intermediate sanctions and 137,000 decisions to apply high-level sanctions, there was no way of knowing for how long individuals had been without money. He also expressed concern about what happens to claimants once they have been sanctioned. What data does the Minister have which can help us on this point?
Prompted by Dr David Webster of Glasgow University, who we have heard about, the UK Statistics Authority is to write to the DWP—it may have done already—with a range of recommendations in an endeavour to obtain further clarity on what is actually happening on sanctions. This will include recommendations on repeat sanctions and hardship payments—at least a start to lifting the veil.
My noble friend has done us a service by bringing forward this issue. Given the pivotal role that sanctions are designed to play in helping deliver full employment and make progress in halving the disability employment gap, we need to be assured that the system is fit for purpose. An independent review must assist at this time. As my noble friend said, surely it is in the department’s interest to know, as well.