Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many benefit claims were subject to sanctions by constituency in the last three months for which data is available; and how much was the (a) total and (b) average sum of benefit income lost by claimants due to sanctions by constituency in that period.

The latest monthly statistics, taken from Stat-Xplore, on the number of Universal Credit full service claimants with a payment that has been reduced due to a sanction, by Westminster parliamentary constituency, for September to November 2022, are provided in the attached spreadsheet.

The additional information requested for (a) and (b) is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.

Sanctions are only ever applied when a claimant fails to meet their agreed conditionality requirements without good reason.