Benefit Sanctions

Kirsty Blackman Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2015 Westminster Hall

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

I do not know how to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin). She was excellent.

I want to discuss the Crisis figures, highlighting a few that were not mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) earlier. Some 77% of those who were sanctioned skipped meals and 64% went without heating. As was mentioned, someone can just about get away with that in this weather down here in London, but not in a cold granite tenement in Aberdeen. It is horrendous that people are having to decide whether to spend their last £10 on the prepayment meter for electricity or on food for their children. It is ridiculous that people are being put in such positions.

Returning to the figures, 60% found it harder to look for work after being sanctioned. That does nothing to encourage people into work. It is an attempt to take money away from people. In a Citizens Advice survey, nine out of 10 people who had been sanctioned said they did not know why they had been sanctioned or how to stop it happening again. If they are supposed to be encouraged into work and to learn from the experience, which is presumably an attempt by the Government to prod them in the right direction, why are they not learning? Why do they not know how to avoid being sanctioned in future? Why have they not gained knowledge from the experience?

I also want to mention the link between sanctions and food banks, which has been discussed at length previously. Research carried out by The BMJ found that areas with the biggest increase in benefit sanctions saw the biggest increase in food bank use. The link is clear. I represent Aberdeen North. Aberdeen is the oil capital of Europe. It has the highest proportion of Rolls-Royces outside of central London. It is a very rich city, but we have so much poverty.

--- Later in debate ---

On resuming—

[Kirsty Blackman]

I was talking about the food bank situation, and the situation more generally, in Aberdeen. We have three food banks in Aberdeen that publish statistics: the Trussell Trust, Instant Neighbour and Community Food Initiatives North East. In the past year, we have seen a massive increase in food bank use in our city. Indeed, between 2012 and 2014, the Trussell Trust saw 240% growth, while the Instant Neighbour food bank saw 120% growth—the growth has been absolutely huge. All three food banks cite late benefit payments and benefit sanctions as reasons for food bank use.

Interestingly, on the topic of getting people back into work, 22% of those across Scotland who go to Trussell Trust food banks say they do so because of low wages.

[Michael Tomlinson]

Does the hon. Lady welcome the pilot scheme under which jobcentre advisers attend food banks to signpost people in the right direction and to help them get back to work?

[Kirsty Blackman]

It is good to have all sorts of advisers in food banks, but food banks are filling a ridiculous gap that we should not have in the system. They are going out of their way themselves to do their best for people in terms of advice. They are having to finance these things and to get money from people, including from local charities and organisations, to provide advice. People really need that advice, and I welcome advice from all quarters, but these things should not be happening in the first place.

As I said, Aberdeen is a rich city. How do people get into a situation where they are unemployed and need to go to food banks? I came from a job where I was not earning as much as I am now—obviously, most of us took a bit of a pay rise when we got this job—so the combined income in my household was less than £40,000. People in my peer group, who are not earning the lowest of the low wages are still just a couple of pay checks away from having to go to food banks. The Government say it is really good that we are giving breaks to people with savings, but people do not have massive savings. If the main earner in the house is made unemployed, and they have a couple of months where they have no finances, they are in serious trouble, no matter how careful they have been or what they have done.

In Aberdeen, people cannot rent a one-bedroom flat for less than about £500 a month. People who have been made unemployed, who are struggling and who are having to pitch up to the jobcentre are really struggling to pay their rent.

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend will be aware that, in my constituency, we now have not only food banks, but a Christmas toy bank. Food banks, general practitioners and the rest are referring people to toy banks at this time of year. Surely that shows that the welfare system is failing.

[Kirsty Blackman]

A local organisation, Home-Start Aberdeen, did an Advent book bank and people donated children’s books. Some of the children who received books would not otherwise have got a book at Christmas time. It is absolutely awful that children are being disadvantaged because of those policies.

Some of the people who walk through the door of my constituency office and through the doors of food banks are pitching up because of late benefit payments. For example, an adverse decision has been made against them, they have been sanctioned and they have got the decision overturned, but it takes another month for that to get through the system and for the money to come in. How can the Government say that someone will be sanctioned for being 15 minutes late for an appointment when they cannot pay somebody for a whole month? How is that a realistic position? They expect individuals to behave in an impossible way—it is impossible for anybody to be on time for every single appointment and never to be 15 minutes late—when they can happily miss paying people for an entire month, and that is acceptable. It is ridiculous that they expect people to live by rules they cannot live by themselves.

I am really distressed by the benefit sanctions system. I am particularly annoyed about the late payments. I am annoyed that the Government, despite having published the guidelines and policies they expect people to work within, do not even stick to them. If there is an appeal, for example, it would be really good if they could make payments timeously to ensure that my constituents do not have to go to food banks.