Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Sherlock on 3 February (HL13743), what assessment they have made of the reasons that Universal Credit sanction rates vary by (1) ethnicity, and (2) region.

Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

No formal assessment has been made, but work is ongoing to expand the benefit sanction statistics, detailed below, to allow analysis in the future.

The Department regularly publishes Universal Credit sanction rate statistics for Great Britain as part of the benefit sanction statistics. These include a breakdown of the sanction rate by ethnic group and an analysis of the sanction ethnicity statistics which can be found at section 5 of the latest publication.

The Department also published an ad-hoc analysis in February 2025 of the Variation in the Universal Credit sanction rate by jobcentres using the UC Sanction Rate dataset on Stat-Xplore.

The ‘Benefit sanction statistics to August 2025’ and the ‘Variation in the Universal Credit sanction rate by jobcentres from January 2017 to August 2024’ are provided in the attached PDF documents.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by Baroness Sherlock on 3 February (HL Deb col 1428), what assessments they have carried out to determine whether access to the benefits system acts as a pull factor for migrants.

Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Home Office is the department responsible for assessing migration trends – including pull factors for migration. The Home Office report ‘Asylum seeker decision-making in journeys to the United Kingdom (2022)’ explores the decision-making process for asylum seekers choosing to come to the UK.

Most migrants with temporary visas cannot access the benefit system. Access to public funds and benefits is usually at the point of settlement, which for most people will be after they have lived in the UK legally for five years, and the Home Office Earned Settlement policy consultation is looking at increasing this to ten years.

The Home Office are also consulting on changing the default position to maintain No Recourse to Public Funds at settlement and lifting this only at the point of British citizenship, in addition to increasing times for path to settlement from five to ten years.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the remarks by Baroness Sherlock on 3 February (HL Deb col 1428), what are the terms of reference for the consultation on the relationship between residence requirements and the benefits system; when that consultation will open; and who can contribute to that consultation.

Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

Full details about the consultation including timelines, how long the consultation will last, and how to be involved, will be announced in due course.

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Sherlock on 30 January (HL13334), of the 344 civil servants employed in the Department for Work and Pensions, what grades they are comprised.

Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)

We do not disclose a breakdown of the grades for data privacy reasons as some of the grades may have fewer than five staff members on Skilled Worker visas.

Found: Letter from Baroness Sherlock to Viscount Younger and others regarding direction powers and fiduciary

Found: A copy of this letter goes to the Secretary of State, The Baroness Sherlock OBE, Bill Thorpe and Graeme