Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what procedures are in place to prevent lengthy, open-ended sanctions in cases where people claiming universal credit have not received correspondence informing them of a sanction on their claim.

DWP has robust procedures in place to ensure that claimants are notified of sanctions that are applied to their claim and are clearly informed of their responsibilities and options of what to do next.

Open-ended sanctions relate to a failure to undertake a specific requirement which will be ended if the claimant re-engages to satisfy the original requirement or if the original requirement changes or becomes no longer relevant. Other changes in circumstances will also end the sanction such as a change in conditionality group or if the claim terminates.