Iain Duncan Smith has recently announced that harsh benefit sanctions system will be made less aggressive in response to criticism from a parliamentary select committee. 

The Work and Pensions Secretary said that people subjected to sanctions would from now on initially be given a “yellow card” or warning when the sanction – a benefit deduction – was triggered.

Under the Conservative welfare “reform” Act, sanctions are now used much more frequently within the social security system. The severity of sanctions has also increased and conditionality is now controversially applied to previously exempt groups such as lone parents and disabled people.

The DWP’s own analysis found that in 2014, there were 47,239 sanction decisions – a total of 6.9% of all cases – where claimants of Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) had not been notified in writing.

The DWP letters – which outline the sanction decision and the right to ask for a review and lodge an appeal – had not been sent out due to an “administration error.” The first that many people knew of the sanction was when they found they had not been paid into their bank account.

Webster has calculated that applying the percentage over the past five years shows there were around 279,000 cases where claimants had their benefit stopped without being officially notified.

He said: “It is a very large number and it explains why so many of these cases are being thrown up in the various voluntary sector reports on sanctions.

“This is one of the commonest stories that people tell – that the first they knew about a sanction is when they went to the cash machine and there was no money.”

He added: “You can do an estimate of the number in Scotland and there would be around 28,000 occasions a sanction has been imposed without the claimant being notified.”

However, Duncan Smith has said that the “yellow card” approach would be introduced on a trial basis, which is a relatively small commitment, next year.

In a letter to the Work and Pensions Select Committee, he said: “During this time, [two weeks] claimants will have another opportunity to provide further evidence to explain their non-compliance.” 

“We will then review this information before deciding whether a sanction remains appropriate. We expect that this will strike the right balance between enforcing the claimant commitment and fairness.”

David Webster’s written and oral evidence to the recent House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee inquiry into Benefit Sanctions, Beyond the Oakley Review, is available on the Parliament.uk website and and his other papers on sanctions are available via Child Poverty Action Group.

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This post was written for Welfare Weekly, which is a socially responsible and ethical news provider, specialising in social welfare related news and opinion.

Iain Duncan Smith gave his first oral evidence to the Work and Penions Commitee today, during an investigation about benefit delivery. The Commitee are concerned that long waits for benefit payments are the single biggest cause of food bank use and are forcing claimants into debt and “survival crime” such as shoplifting.

A Trussell Trust survey of 51 of its food banks revealed that people typically experienced benefit delays of five weeks, although waits of up to 20 weeks were also common.

The Trussell Trust said more than one in four of its clients receive food parcels as a result of benefits delays.

This morning, Duncan Smith dismissed the findings from the Resolution Foundation that the Tory tax credit cuts will undermine universal credit because they will reduce work incentives, despite much evidence to the contrary, including from the respected Institute for Financial Study (IFS), he continued to claim that under universal credit, people would still be “better off in work.”

The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions again dismissed evidence that benefit sanctions have pushed some claimants to suicide. He said:

“I don’t accept your assertion somehow that these things are directly linked. These are tragedies in their own right and they are often very complex as individual cases. Sanctions have been part of the benefit system for some time. Under the last Labour government they were accepted as part of the benefit system. I always accepted them. I always recognised there were issues occasionally and problems but I didn’t go round accusing the then Labour government of running a system that somehow ended up in the way that you are making this allegation.”

The persistent denial from the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions that there is a correlation between the government’s welfare cuts and an increase in mortality, including suicide, flies in the face of evidence presented by the Work and Pensions Committee earlier this year, when the cross-party Committee of MPs said that since 2012 there have been at least 40 cases of people taking their own lives because of problems with welfare payments

The MPs called for an independent review into benefit sanctions, and said that they were “causing severe financial hardship” and are behind the rise in food banks. It was reported that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has investigated 49 cases where a claimant has died.

Of these, 40 involved a suicide, the Work and Pensions Select Committee said. But the DWP was unwilling to say how many of the deaths were a result of benefit sanctions or say if it had changed its policies as a result.

Iain Duncan Smith also said today that he is planning to put benefit advisers in food banks, and that this has already been piloted at one food bank in Manchester, and it was a success, he claimed, because the advisers could help resolve problems with people’s benefit claims. He told the Committee:

“I am trialling at the moment a job adviser situating themselves in the food bank for the time that the food bank is open and we are already getting very strong feedback about that. If this works and if the other food banks are willing to encompass this and we think it works we think we would like to roll this out across the whole of the UK.”

Duncan Smith also said:

“They are to provide support to people who come in and that can include people saying, ‘I haven’t had my payment’”, giving the example of a claimant whose money was delayed because officials had not seen the right documents.”

He added weakly:

“I asked how often is this happening, and they said: ‘Well, a bit.’ But what’s happening much more now is not people coming in with questions about their benefits, but they are actually interested in where [they] can find work.”

“We welcome the government’s interest in exploring new ways that the DWP might help people at food banks who have hit crisis as a result of problems with welfare delivery, but we would also suggest that there first needs to be a dialogue between the DWP and the Trussell Trust network about the possible challenges and opportunities that hosting DWP advisers in food banks could afford. We need to look at the most helpful ways for local jobcentres and food banks to work together.”

Yesterday I reported that a rarely-used procedure called a “fatal motion” is set to be tabled in the House of Lords this week, followed by a vote next week, with the specific design of preventing George Osborne from putting his controversial proposed £4bn tax credit cuts into law.

The Huffington Post reports that House of Lords could be controversially suspended or “flooded with Tory peers” if it takes the “nuclear option” of killing off George Osborne’s tax credits cuts next week, according to government sources. This is a truly remarkable threat from the Conservative government, in a so-called first world liberal democracy.

Furious Conservatives are threatening the unprecedented and profoundly undemocratic retaliation if peers decide to proceed with the step of using the so-called “fatal motion” to kill the Chancellor’s plans to cut working tax credits.

Campaigners believe that the usual Salisbury convention, which stops the Lords from blocking a party’s plans, does not apply because the tax credits cuts were not mentioned in the Tory manifesto in May.

But a fatal motion on what the Tories deem “a financial matter” would be unprecedented and Tory sources say the government are determined that the Lords would “have to pay a serious political price” if the Government is defeated next week.

Normally if the Lords defeat the Government on a money-related bill, it can be overturned easily in the Commons by the Speaker deeming it a financial issue. But a statutory instrument has no such condition.

Baroness Meacher told BBC Radio 4’s World at One on Monday afternoon that the cross-party determination to overturn the plans was strong.

Asked how much support she had, Meacher said: “A lot. There are clearly a lot of Conservatives who are very worried about this. There’s very strong support from the Labour Party and Lib Dem, cross-benchers who are very worried.”

And the government’s threat comes when several Conservatives have warned the tax credit cut will be damaging. Also speaking to the BBC today, even Boris Johnson ramped up the pressure on the chancellor. The London mayor said while it was “brave” and “right” to reform the tax credit system the government needed to make sure it was done in a fair way. He said:

I think everybody is concerned about everything that bares down unfairly on the working poor and it’s very important as we take this thing forward we do it in such a way as to minimize that impact.

Baroness added that Bishops in the Lords were “very deeply concerned” and would “want to support a rethink” of Osborne’s plan. Asked if the Bishops would support her, she said: “That’s my understanding.”

This is an unprecedented and extremely undemocratic threat on the part of the government. The House of Lords shares responsibility for making laws with the House of Common. The role of the House of Lords (sometimes called the “upper house”) is to provide an additional safeguarding mechanism of democracy, as the second chamber of Parliament. Members regularly review and amend Bills from the Commons.

The House of Lords plays a vital role in making and shaping our laws and crucially, in checking and challenging the government; it shares this role with the House of Commons. The Lords has a reputation for thorough and detailed scrutiny of Bills.

The House of Lords serves a valuable democratic function by providing a national forum of debate free from the constraints of party discipline. Although the defeat of government legislation by the house has been relatively rare on major legislation, it sometimes does defy the government. Members come from many walks of life and bring experience and knowledge from a wide range of occupations. Members use their extensive individual experience to investigate and scrutinise public policy.

Much of this work is done in select committees – small groups appointed to consider specific policy areas. Members play a crucial role in holding the government to account.

In late 2011 and early 2012, the Tory-led Coalition government suffered a series of defeats in the House of Lords on amendments to its flagship Welfare Reform Bill. Most of the defeats were on highly controversial matters, including the bedroom tax, disability benefits, the reform of the child maintenance system and the introduction of an overall benefit cap.

The Lords also tabled amendments to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill. All were subsequently overturned by the House of Commons, which cited its “financial privilege” – or the right to dismiss the Lords’ demands on “financial matters”. As a consequence it was argued by the government that the Lords should, by convention, not insist on its proposals.

These events provoked anger both inside and outside parliament, with claims that the government had misused parliamentary procedure in order to secure its extremely controversial policy programme, and that the incident could be considered not only as profoundly undemocratic, but also, as “an abuse of privilege,” and a means of avoiding unwelcome scrutiny of and accountability for objectionable policies. A widespread complaint is that the financial privilege process lacks transparency.

At present there are no clear definitions as to what falls within Commons financial privilege. And once privilege has been invoked on an amendment, the Commons gives no explanation as to why. Such lack of transparency makes it difficult for peers to anticipate whether financial privilege will be applied to their amendments, and has certainly fed perceptions outside parliament that the process is being abused.

There is also a lack of transparency about how the Lords may respond when faced by a claim of Commons financial privilege.

Sick and disabled people in the Work Related Activity Group (WRAG), claiming Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) will see payments cut by £30 a week, to bring the benefit in line with the current Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) rate.

The cut will affect up to 500,000 sick and disabled people, including many with incurable and progressive conditions like Parkinson’s and Motor Neuron Disease, who are unfit for work but whom the Department of Work and Pensions believes may be capable of working at some point in the future.

Debbie Abrahams, the shadow minster for disabled people, and a former public health consultant, is calling on the Government to scrap the measure.

Debbie has highlighted the government’s own figures, which showed that the death rate of people on out-of-work disability benefits had increased – in comparison with the general population – from 2003 to the period between 2011 and 2014.

She has pointed out that people in the WRAG were 2.2 times more likely to die than the general population.

She said:

“The innuendo that people with a disability or illness might be ‘faking it’ or are ‘feckless’ is quite frankly grotesque and belies the epidemiological data.

Incapacity benefit and ESA are recognised as good population health indicators. I can say that as a former public health consultant. I have experience of this and I have worked in this field.

The release of the government’s own data, which show that this group are more likely to die than the general population, proves that point.”

Ms Abrahams said the government had “continually maligned, vilified and demonised” benefit claimants, whilst its use of words like “shirkers” and “scroungers” had led to these terms being used far more often in the media.

Disability hate crime has increased significantly over the past five years. Recent figures published by the Home Office reveal that 2,508 disability motivated hate crimes were reported and recorded by the police in 2014/15, up 25% from 2,006 in 2013/14.

Debbie Abrahams told the Daily Mirror:

“Disabled people are already twice as likely to live in persistent poverty.

While last year, more than 300,000 additional disabled people were pushed in to poverty.

That is why Labour is calling for the Government to carry out a proper impact assessments that considers the combined impact of cuts to disabled people.”

Speaking to fellow MPs, Debbie said:

“This group of people are vulnerable and need care and support, not humiliation, from us. 

Once again the cart is being put before the horse: make cuts in support and cross your fingers that something turns up for disabled people.”

During the first parliamentary debate about the WRAG ESA cuts, Priti Patel, the employment minister, said the work-related activity component was introduced by the last Labour government “as an incentive to encourage people to participate in employment”.

She said:

“Clearly, we know that that has not happened. We are therefore reforming our approach with DWP, through our jobcentres and work coaches, to support individuals to get back into work.”

She added:

“Through all our welfare reforms we have made it clear that we will continue to protect and support the vulnerable.

That of course includes those who have terminal illnesses or people with progressive illnesses who are unable to work.”

During discussion of a related clause of the bill, Patel added:

“It is very easy for Labour members to claim that the [WRAG] measure is about taking money away.

It is about providing the right kind of support for people with health conditions and disabilities.”

It IS about taking money away.

Let’s not forget that this government have actually cut support for disabled people who want to work. The Access To Work funding has been severely cut, this is a fund that helps people and employers to cover the extra living costs arising due to disabilities that might present barriers to work. The Independent Living fund was cruelly scrapped by this Government, which also has a huge impact on those trying their best to lead independent and dignified lives.

Ms Abrahams said:

“It is unjust that people with serious health conditions, who have been assessed by the Government’s own Work Capability Assessment process as ‘not fit for work’, should have support cut in this manner.

These measures also risk making it harder for some disabled people to move back to work, as they will have lost the financial support that helps them secure employment opportunities.”

Absolutely.

Jeremy Corbyn challenges David Cameron over tax credit cuts and affordable housing in his second Prime Minister’s Questions appearance.

According to reports, a rarely-used procedure called a “fatal motion” is set to be tabled in the House of Lords this week, followed by a vote next week, with the specific design of preventing George Osborne from putting his controversial proposed £4bn tax credit cuts into law. In the House of Lords, Peers may table a “prayer” against a negative Statutory Instrument. Under the standard negative procedure, the Statutory Instrument is annulled if the prayer motion is agreed by the House within 40 days of the Statutory Instrument being laid.

Fatal motions are extremely rare, with only a very small number successfully passed since the 1960s, as Peers are wary of overreaching their usual delaying powers with such a drastic “nuclear option.”

But campaigners and crossbench, Labour and Liberal Democrat Peers point out that the fact that the tax credit cuts were not in the Conservative manifesto means they are not bound by the usual Salisbury convention that prevents the Lords from blocking election promises. Opposition parties believe that any move to halt the legislation would be constitutional because the tax credits cuts were not in the Tory manifesto in May, and David Cameron even told TV viewers in the election campaign that tax credit rates would not be cut.

The tax credit cuts were not included in the Finance Bill, which normally enacts a Budget, and the opposition have used the opportunity to seize on the fact that a Statutory Instrument can be halted by a single House of Lords vote.

The tax credit cuts are due to come into force in April, but the statutory instrument needed to make them law is due to be voted on in the House of Lords on October 26.

As I reported in  Welfare Weekly  (and here) earlier, Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell pledged today that his party would reverse the tax credits cuts once it came into power.

The Huffington Post reports that a crossbench peer is being lined up to table the motion in a bid to garner as much support as possible and use the in-built anti-Tory majority in the Lords to stop the Chancellor from going ahead.

The Conservatives have a small overall Commons working majority of 16, however, they are outnumbered in the Lords, with 246 peers compared with 209 for Labour and 106 for the Liberal Democrats. There are also a further 175 peers are crossbenchers (not aligned to any party) and 25 of these are bishops. It is understood that the bishops may also take the rare step of voting against the Government.

The so-called Tax Credits Regulations 2015 (Income Thresholds and Determination of Rates) (Amendment) are in the name of Treasury minister and former Goldman Sachs banker Lord O’Neill of Gatley.

The Liberal Democrats have already tabled a “regret” motion that can only delay the Bill, however, a senior crossbencher will be asked this week table a much the much more drastic fatal motion to kill the secondary legislation.

Among the crossbench names mentioned by campaigners are former social work specialist Baroness Meacher, who has led previous Government defeats on welfare legislation.

Labour also has its own Opposition day debate on Tuesday, which although lacking any binding vote will be used to gauge how many Conservative MPs are worried about the plans, and to court their support in opposing the Bill.

Labour MP Frank Field said:

“This [motion] will be one of those amendments which are rarely tabled but which will kill the measure.

“As time goes on, more of Osborne’s backbenchers are now understanding that far from protecting strivers as the Chancellor promised, he is aiming the biggest cut ever in welfare on this group, who he courted during the election.

“It smashes his 2020 election campaign which would have been all about the strivers. Tory MPs have taken seriously, as the leadership haven’t, that they wish to represent strivers.”

Despite significant pressure from some Tory MPs in marginal seats, the Prime Minister and Mr Osborne have so far rejected warnings that the tax credits cuts will leave large numbers of the low paid workers hundreds of pounds worse off.

Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell revealed this afternoon that Labour would reverse the Tory cuts to tax credits. This comes after self-employed working mum Michelle Dorrell highlighted on Question Time that Conservative policies are not “making work pay.”

Michelle Dorrell said:

I voted for Conservatives originally, cos I thought you were going to be the better chance for me and my children. You’re about to cut tax credits after promising you wouldn’t.

I work bloody hard for my money. To provide for my children to give them everything they’ve got – and you’re going to take it away from me and them.

I can hardly afford the rent I’ve got to pay, I can hardly afford the bills I’ve got to do, and you’re going to take more than me.

Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Seema Malhotra, described the cuts to tax credits as a “turning point in peoples’ trust in George Osborne,” as she criticised the policy.

She was, however, criticised for seeming to “dodge” giving a straight yes or no answer on whether a Labour government would reverse the cuts during an interview on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show. But it was announced last week by Owen Smith that Labour will attempt to overturn the cuts to tax credits introduced in the summer budget by tabling changes to the welfare bill due to be debated, and John McDonnell has further clarified Labour’s position.

Labour had already organised an Opposition Day Debate on the tax credit cuts in the Commons for Tuesday. Owen Smith, Labour’s shadow work and pensions secretary, said the Labour amendment would give Tory MPs one last chance to reverse tax credit cuts for 3 million families before they face a storm of protest in their constituencies about the changes when voters’ pay packets are hit next year.

He said that he wanted to offer Conservative MPs the chance to act before they face protests from constituents when cuts start affecting wages next year.

Already, some Tory MPs have increased pressure on George Osborne to soften tax credit cuts, after the former cabinet minister Andrew Mitchell urged him to do more to “ameliorate” the impact on the low paid. Mitchell told the BBC’s Sunday Politics that there were “two particular efforts we need to take now to ensure we minimise the impact on what you rightly say are hard-working and low-paid families.”

There were also surprising reports over the weekend that Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, wants extra support for those who are shortly to be told how much money they will lose.

The sweeping changes to tax credits, aimed at saving the Treasury billions of pounds, will affect millions of people and could cost some families up to £1,300 a year, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

The cuts were announced by the Chancellor in July, and as well as raising concern that restricting this in-work benefit to the first two children has a whiff of underpinning eugenics, immediate concerns were raised that millions of low-paid working households would lose income.

Recent evidence provided by the Resolution Foundation reveals planned welfare cuts will lead to an increase of at least 200,000 working households living in poverty by 2020 as a result of the budget changes.

Furthermore, we are also witnessing wages drop lower than all of the other G20 countries, since 2010, the International Labour Organisation informs us.

In advance of the debate, Owen Smith has also written to the chancellor, George Osborne, demanding that the Treasury publishes a full assessment of the cumulative impact of the tax credit and benefit reforms.

The tax credit cuts will come into force from next April, with those affected expected to receive letters before Christmas informing them of the reductions to their take home pay.

 

The video of the tearful mother on Question Time explaining to Cabinet minister Amber Rudd what losing her tax credits will mean is everywhere today. The audience member also revealed that she had voted Conservative in May because, she said, “I thought you were going to be the better chance for me and my children”.

This video has been one of the most emotive examples of the impact of the Tories’ tax credit cuts to date, which is why it has been so widely shared. But the clip has also revealed the more unpleasant side of the left on social media, with people judging this poor woman for the way she voted.

She believed that the Tories would provide a better government for her family. I disagree, but I can relate to that decision. If even she, breaking down on television in desperation, is not good enough for the Labour Party, then who is?

If Labour is to win in 2020 it will need the votes of people like her. In fact, we will also need the votes of people who voted Tory and aren’t being hit by tax credit cuts. This is not up for debate: there is no way to win without their support.

The progressive majority myth, the non-voter myth, the mountain to climb – it all points to winning over Tories.

It’s all well and good sitting there and tweeting how we said this would happen, happy in the knowledge that we are not to blame. Labour does have to shoulder some blame for this, because we did not make a strong enough case that we could support people’s families. That’s why people voted for five more years of David Cameron. An a priori belief that Tories are evil does not amount to a strong enough case for Labour being in power to people who do not share that unshakeable faith.

Fear tactics may be successful in politics, but smug I Told You Sos are not.

This article by Connor Pope first appeared in the LabourList daily email – you can sign up to receive it here.

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What’s your own opinion on this issue?

Don’t forget that before the election Cameron promised that he wouldn’t cut tax credits.

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