Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many claimants of employment and support allowance in (a) Jarrow constituency, (b) South Tyneside, (c) the North East and (d) the UK have received a sanction of their benefit in each of the last five years.

Sanctions are only used in a small percentage of cases, and that is when people fail to meet their agreed commitments without good reason. When considering whether a sanction is appropriate, a Decision Maker will take all the claimant’s individual circumstances, including any health conditions or disabilities, domestic emergencies and any evidence of good reason, into account before deciding whether a sanction is warranted.

The latest Benefit Sanction Statistics (for Great Britain), released in February 2019, show that just 0.03% of ESA claimants in the Work Related Activity Group had a reduction in benefit as a result of a sanction.

The number of Employment and Support Allowance claimants who have been sanctioned by parliamentary constituency, local authority and region is published 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