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22 July, 2020 Open access

Secretary of State confirms that DWP is not actively seeking to apply sanctions during coronavirus outbreak

Giving evidence to Select Committee, Dr Coffey says that if there are any sanctions applied at all, they will be very rare

Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Thérèse Coffey has confirmed that the DWP is not actively seeking to apply benefit sanctions during the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak and that 'if there are any applied at all, they will be very rare'.

Giving evidence to the Work and Pensions Committee today, Dr Coffey responded to a question on how claimants are to balance work-related requirements with the need to follow public health advice following the reintroduction of conditionality and sanctions from 1 July 2020, by saying that the Department had 'started this carefully', with work coaches phoning their cohort of claimants to have initial conversations about the claimant commitment, and that -

'I am conscious that a lot of this will be a light touch element of claimant commitment. It's not our intention to particuarly go out activley seeking to impose sanctions or similar and I expect if there are any applied at all it will be very rare'

NB - responding to a written question in the House of Commons yesterday - which asked the Secretary of State to publish the guidance issued to work coaches and case managers to support the re-implementation of claimant commitments - DWP Minister Mims Davies said - 

'Universal credit guidance for work coaches and case managers is routinely placed in the House of Commons library and it is updated at regular intervals. There are no plans to depart from that practice.'

The evidence session before the Work and Pensions Committee is available from parliamentlive.tv