Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many sanctions were made against claimants of universal credit in the last financial year; how many of those people sanctioned asked for a mandatory reconsideration; and how many decisions on those sanctions for which such a reconsideration was requested were upheld.

Statistics on the volume and outcomes of Universal Credit sanction decisions and mandatory reconsiderations up to January 2018, the latest available at the time of request, are published and can be found at: https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/

Guidance for users is available at:

https://sw.stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started.html

We take a number of steps to make sure our decisions are fair. When considering whether a sanction is appropriate, a Decision Maker will take all the claimant’s individual circumstances into account, including any health conditions or disabilities and any evidence of good cause they have provided, before deciding whether a sanction is warranted.

If a claimant disagrees with a decision, they can ask for the decision to be reconsidered and subsequently can appeal against the decision to an independent tribunal.