Report: Nearly 100,000 children affected by benefits sanctions in 2013/14

A new report from a coalition of major UK Churches has revealed that around 100,000 children were affected by benefit sanctions in 2013/14. It also shows that in the same period a total of nearly 7 million weeks of sanctions were handed out to benefit claimants. The new data, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, will feature in this evening’s episode of Channel 4’s Dispatches, entitled Britain’s Benefits Crackdown.

The report, entitled Time to Rethink Benefit Sanctions, is published today by the Baptist Union of Great Britain, Church Action on Poverty, the Church in Wales, the Church of Scotland, the Methodist Church and the United Reformed Church. It contains new data on the severity and length of sanctions under Welfare Reform, and on how sanctions affect vulnerable groups such as children and those with mental health problems.

The churches are urging the Government to suspend all sanctions against families with children and those suffering from mental health problems. Most importantly, they say, there needs to be a change of culture, from one of enforcement and punishment to one of assistance and support.

Benefit payments can be cut or stopped for between four weeks and three years if a person is deemed to have broken the benefit rules.

“Those who already have the most difficult lives are those most likely to be sanctioned,” said Paul Morrison, Public Issues Policy Adviser for the Methodist Church and one of the authors of the report. “Sanctions impact disproportionately on young people, care leavers, homeless people, single parents, the mentally ill and those with long term illness. This system causes problems for the very people that most need help.

“But sanctions don’t just have a financial impact. The people we’ve spoken to have told us of the shame, demoralisation and loss of self-worth caused by this system.  As Christians we believe that everyone is loved, valued and made in the image of God, and we have a responsibility to challenge any structure or system that undermines that dignity.”

The Churches are also calling for a full and independent review of the regime and for urgent reform of the hardship payments system to avoid the deliberate imposition of hunger.

The report features the stories of people like James* who have had their benefits sanctioned:

“During the first three weeks of my sanction I continued to look for work as I was required to. By the fourth week however I was exhausted, unwell and no longer had it in me. I was not eating as I had no food and was losing a lot of weight. I told the Jobcentre I was unwell through not eating but was sanctioned for another three months for not looking for work properly.”

“If you commit a crime, no criminal court in the UK is allowed to make you go hungry as a punishment,” said Niall Cooper, Director of Church Action on Poverty. “But if you’re late for an appointment at the Jobcentre, they can remove all your income and leave you unable to feed you or your family for weeks at a time.”

Phil Jump, Regional Minister Team Leader for the North Western Baptist Association, confirms that benefit sanctions have become a source of increasing concern for many churches, especially those that are involved in foodbanks and other community provision. “It is hard not to sense that reducing the cost of welfare benefit has become more important to officials than making sure that it properly provides for those for whom it was designed,” he says. “Perhaps inadvertently, perhaps by deliberate intent, the present sanctions system is causing undeserved and disproportionate harm to some of the most vulnerable and powerless people in our society. I believe that there is an urgent need to re-consider the severity, frequency and scale of benefit sanctions.”

#RethinkSanctions

*Not his real name.