Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what her Department’s policy is from 1 July 2020 on applying benefit sanctions for claimants who have been assessed as failing to comply with their claimant commitment.

From the 1^st of July, we will be contacting claimants to introduce a personalised claimant commitment.

Claimant commitments must be reasonable for this unprecedented time, reflecting the reality of a person’s local jobs market and personal circumstances to help prepare them for getting back into work. The claimant commitment will take into account local and national public health guidelines.

Sanctions are only used when people fail to meet their agreed commitments without good reason – and UC sanction rates have fallen to the lowest rate on record.