DWP refuse to disclose how many benefit sanctions issued since Labour came to Power
ALBA Party have called for the Department of Works and Pensions to be immediately reformed or scrapped.
Their call comes as after the DWP failed to disclose how many benefits sanctions it had issued since the new Labour Government came to power.
Claimants are required to meet agreed conditions to be eligible for Universal Credit. If a claimant does not meet one or more conditions of their benefit claim, their benefit could be stopped or reduced.
In response to a Freedom of Information Request by made by Alba, DWP officials stated that the volume of sanctions issued last month was so high it would take over three days to collate the information so the request was rejected .
Before last months election Labour said if they were to get into government they would ensure better transparency over benefits sanctions and that they would publish data on the number of people sanctioned by the DWP who have disabilities.
The DWP currently only publishes figures on a quarterly basis and these show that over 120,000 people were subject to Benefits Sanctions in the latest figures available for May 2024. Statistics for the period that covers May to July 2024 are not due to be published until 12 November 2024.
Alba say that under the current system people are obliged to repeat “arduous, lengthy and stressful” assessments to go back on the sickness benefits they initially received if a job doesn’t work out.
The number of benefit claimants that find a job each year has more than halved since 2015 prompting Alba Party’s former Westminster leader Neale Hanvey has urged the new Labour government to move away from the Tory Government’s attempt to “look tough” and instead carry out a root and branch overhaul of the Department of Works and Pensions - which does not rule out scrapping it completely and replacing it with a new Social Security Department similar to that being set up in Scotland.
Commenting Alba Party’s Neale Hanvey said:
“People who can’t work deserve the security of a welfare system free from fear or the threat of the the current sanctions regime. It would appear that since Labour took office there has been no attempt to address a Tory policy that Labour readily condemned in opposition. Instead Labour are now in charge of a department handing out damaging sanctions to some of the poorest people in society.
“Over the last fourteen years the social security safety net has been systematically dismantled by the London Tories. Yet for Labour to now allow that situation to persist shows they are content for the Tories to do their dirty work while making no attempt to change the system now they have the power to do so.
"As we’ve already seen with the two child benefit cap and the bedroom tax, despite all their promises of change, Starmer’s UK Labour Government are content to continue the Tory‘s austerity attacks on the welfare state."
"I am calling on the UK Government to urgently fix the gaping holes that the Tories created in social security. They must begin by scrapping the disgraceful and punitive Tory benefit sanctions system tout suite”
