argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Labor
Lucy Claire Leigh (Frazer) (Conservative, Centre-right): I congratulate the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mhairi Black) on securing the debate, on the tone that she adopted and on the powerful way in which she spoke In my speech, I will identify three things: the general principle that working is important—the value of work—the existing sanctions regime and the importance of limiting sanctions wherever possible. Before I do so, I would like to make a general point. I think that the hon. Lady accepted that the system worked in some places, that there are hardship payments and that there is guidance. Implicit in her speech and in the Bill was the recognition that she seeks to change the implementation of the system, not the system itself, but I am not clear that legislation is necessarily the right way to do that First, I want to identify the principle of work. We need to encourage, empower and inform everybody about the opportunities of work, because work has a number of benefits. It gives people self-fulfilment and financial responsibility for themselves, and it enables them to be a role model for their children. Work also helps the country as a whole. If we have high employment and high productivity, we remain competitive as a nation and we ensure that those who might suffer, physically or mentally, from being out of work can help themselves. It is our job, as a Government, to ensure that those opportunities remain available and that people have the skills and the confidence to go to work Secondly, I said that I would identify the sanctions regime. The idea that people should go to work—that it pays to work, that people should get off benefits to go into work and that we should encourage them to do so—is neither new nor controversial. Likewise, the benefit system and the sanctions system are not new. The sanctions system has been around for four decades, and there is some evidence that sanctioning works; 70% of claimants say that they are more likely to follow the rules if they know that they are at risk of having their benefits stopped if they do not According to the National Audit Office report, international evidence suggests that sanctioning increases the number of people who go from benefits into employment. We have sanctions because we have conditions, and conditions are useful. Through the conditions system, people can get the training and the skills that they need, and conditions force people to get the skills that they need. As has been said during the debate, the evidence suggests that 90% of people do not have any sanctions at all.
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Labor
Lucy Claire Leigh (Frazer) (Conservative, Centre-right): I have read the report, and it states, as I have said, that the international evidence suggests that sanctions increase the number of people who go from benefits into employment. It is incredibly important that we get people into work Having set out the system, I would like to identify, thirdly, the things we need to ward against. We absolutely need to protect the vulnerable in our society. Those who cannot work must not be penalised, and we need to ensure that those who suffer sanctions are still able to maintain a proper standard of living As I said at the outset, the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South rightly spoke about the importance of mental health, so the following principles are important. Sanctioning must be a last resort, and the sanctions must be monitored. It is right that there is a right of appeal, and that there is a further appeal to an independent decision maker. It is right that there is a hardship fund, and that that fund protects the most vulnerable.
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Social Welfare
Lucy Claire Leigh (Frazer) (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West (Conor Burns) rightly identified that hardship payments are one of the steps set out in the process. We do not necessarily need legislation to identify the fact that people should be told that a hardship system is in place—that should happen. The hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South rightly identified that the practice works in some places. If it works in some places, it is not legislation that is needed. We need to ensure that good practice is happening throughout the country The hon. Lady also rightly spoke about the work of jobcentre staff, and the Oakley review said: "All of the conversations that the Review team held with Jobcentre Plus staff highlighted their dedication to trying to help claimants back into work and ensuring that the social security system was administered fairly and effectively." That is what we need to keep doing The Bill rightly recognises that the position could be improved, because things can always be improved. There is a continuous assessment of what is right and what is wrong. We have had the independent Oakley review of sanctions, which recognised that work still needs to be done.
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Labor
Lucy Claire Leigh (Frazer) (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, but the Government have accepted a significant number of the Oakley review’s recommendations. Of course we need guidance, but there is already some guidance from the DWP. The guidance lists a number of examples, including: "The claimant provides a statement that he could not attend the jobcentre because he had to attend a job interview thirty miles…from his home. The DM writes to the claimant asking for details of the interview time... The claimant provides details which clearly show that he could not have attended the jobcentre at the time and day specified in the written notice. The details are provided after the five days, but they merely verify the claimant’s original statement. The claimant has shown good reason within the five days."
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Labor
Lucy Claire Leigh (Frazer) (Conservative, Centre-right): May I finish the point? Guidance is already set out in the DWP documentation. Obviously not every scenario is set out, but it is the job of those working at jobcentres to help those who come before them.
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Labor
Kevin John Foster (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. and learned Friend may remember that certain cases from unemployment benefits case law used to be in the jobseeker’s allowance regulations. One reason why they were removed in 2012 was to prevent them from being interpreted as a definitive list of cases. There are numerous scenarios and individual circumstances that just cannot be put into a list.
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Transportation
Lucy Claire Leigh (Frazer) (Conservative, Centre-right): I will make some progress Secondly, the hon. Lady questioned how people can provide evidence that a bus or a train was late. I can think of a number of ways of doing so, such as taking a photograph of the dashboard or asking a member of staff to provide evidence. Thirdly, she said that staff may be affected, but I have already covered that point In conclusion, the hon. Lady’s Bill is important because we need to assess what works and what does not work. I welcome the call for consistency, because it is absolutely vital that we have a system that works fairly throughout the country.
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Labor
Lucy Claire Leigh (Frazer) (Conservative, Centre-right): I am about to finish I welcome the fact that we have had a review—the Oakley review—and the fact that the Government have taken on board some of the recommendations. We must consistently and constantly strive to ensure that work pays, that we encourage people to find work and, at the same time, we must protect the most vulnerable.
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Macroeconomics
Michael James Tomlinson-Mynors (Conservative, Centre-right): I, too, heard the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West (Conor Burns). I understood that he was making a broader point about taxpayers. Will the hon. Member for Angus (Mike Weir) answer this question, please: what is his view on the principle of sanctions? Should there be sanctions at all, yes or no?
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Social Welfare
Helen Olivia Bicknell Whately (Conservative, Centre-right): I congratulate the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mhairi Black) on introducing the Bill, on the enormous amount of work and research she has clearly done in preparing it and on the great sincerity with which she put her case to the House I am sure the hon. Lady will not be surprised to hear that I disagree with her Bill, but it is a good thing for us to talk about those in the greatest difficulty and about which parts of the welfare system do not always work. All Members, in their day-to-day work and casework, will have come across the examples we have heard today of parts of the system that do not work as intended and are not helping people as well as they should, and we all do our bit to make sure those mistakes and oversights—letters going to the wrong address, for instance—are corrected. In my experience, they are very often corrected. I am sure we have all had mistakes corrected for our constituents. The fact that there are mistakes—even though they might be awful mistakes—is not necessarily a reason to rip the system up and start again.
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Social Welfare
Helen Olivia Bicknell Whately (Conservative, Centre-right): From visiting food banks in my constituency and looking into the issue, I know that there are many reasons why people are using them. I am sure we would all prefer it if people did not have to go to food banks, but there are many reasons why they do, so we should not point the finger entirely at the sanctions regime.
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Government Operations
Helen Olivia Bicknell Whately (Conservative, Centre-right): As I said a few moments ago, I do not agree with the proposed Bill. I do, however, think it right to work, as the Government rightly are, on ways to improve the system. Substantial steps have been taken already.
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Government Operations
Helen Olivia Bicknell Whately (Conservative, Centre-right): Let me make a little progress, because I am coming on to the steps that have already been taken to make sure that the system works better. The hon. Member for Dundee West (Chris Law) knows, and we all know, that the Government have been working very hard and are listening. They responded, for example, to the Oakley review and acted on its recommendations to make the whole system work better.
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Law and Crime
Kevin John Foster (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is generous in giving way. Does she agree that we have already seen the number of JSA sanctions halved since March last year and that the Government are dealing with ongoing reviews? Most of the arguments advanced so far in favour of the Bill have been about issues of human judgment, which will be exactly the same with the codes of practice and just cause listed in the Bill?
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Social Welfare
Helen Olivia Bicknell Whately (Conservative, Centre-right): I understand that the hon. Lady wants to intervene, but will she let me make a bit of progress because I have hardly been through two sentences of what I was planning to say. I will, of course, allow her to intervene later, not least because she is so passionate about this subject I want to take a step back and talk about the overall system that is in place. We rightly have a safety-net benefits system so that nobody should have to live in abject poverty. This system is taxpayer funded and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West (Conor Burns) argued earlier, we should not forget that the money that funds the system comes from people’s pockets—not just from the wealthiest, but from people who are not well off and those described as "just about managing". We always need to ensure that the welfare system gets the balance right between supporting those who need help with their income and not taking too much money away from those who do not have a huge amount of money to spend in the first place.
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Social Welfare
Helen Olivia Bicknell Whately (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady makes the important point that we should look for value for money from Government spending. That is absolutely right, but there seems to be some kind of error that the imposition of sanctions in its own right is all about trying to reduce the amount of money spent on benefits. My understanding of the benefits system is that it is part of a larger welfare system that is attempting to help people get into work. Work is an important aspect of the system and some money is spent to achieve that. It is the whole aim of the system around jobseeker’s allowance, the Work programme and so forth.
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Social Welfare
Helen Olivia Bicknell Whately (Conservative, Centre-right): Let me make a bit of progress to get on to my second page, and I shall take more interventions later My main point is that we should all agree that it is perfectly reasonable to expect that in return for receiving a share of somebody else’s income as a benefit payment, the recipient should, if capable, make an effort to work. None of us wants a "something for nothing" culture—that is not good for anyone—and, rightly, conditions are attached to benefits. As long as those conditions are reasonable, it is also reasonable to attach a penalty for not complying, which is what the sanctions system does. Underpinning that is the social contract, which was mentioned earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West. The simple moral case is that people who hope to benefit from a society that gives them certain rights and supports them when they are in need must also take responsibility themselves.
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Labor
Helen Olivia Bicknell Whately (Conservative, Centre-right): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Accordingly, I shall now deal with the practical case for sanctions The purpose and the effect of sanctions is to encourage people to take steps to find work. According to the Department for Work and Pensions, 70% of claimants say that they are more likely to stick to the rules, and to participate in the activity that will help them to get closer to work if they know that their benefits could be withdrawn.
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Labor
Helen Olivia Bicknell Whately (Conservative, Centre-right): I must make a little bit of progress. Otherwise I shall be speaking until 2.30 pm, and I know that other Members wish to speak Claimants in that position are more likely to turn up for appointments with their work coaches, more likely to search for jobs online, and more likely to engage in Work programme activities that will help them to make their way towards finding a job. I recently visited Faversham creek, where Work programme activities include building boats. That is a fantastic activity, and I could see—and heard stories about—the enormous difference that it can make to participants. They gain real skills and meaningful involvement, which can take them closer to the workplace. The structure of turning up and doing the work is very good for their self-esteem, and the benefits are clear.
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Labor
Helen Olivia Bicknell Whately (Conservative, Centre-right): I shall come to the point about the evidence in a moment, but before I do so I want to say something about conditionality. I know that Opposition Members think there should be no sanctions at all. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South has said that she opposes sanctions in their entirety, although I appreciate that the Bill is not intended to achieve that The problem is that if there are no sanctions, that brings conditionality into question. As other Members have said, conditionality has been a long-standing feature of welfare benefit entitlements since they were introduced at the beginning of the last century, and in the United Kingdom access to employment benefit specifically has always been conditional on recipients’ being involuntarily unemployed and available for work. Sanctions have been a feature of the JSA since it was introduced in 1996 and they were continued under Labour as well as the coalition Government Nor is the UK alone in imposing sanctions; it is the norm in most countries to have conditions placed on receiving benefits. France, for instance, imposes sanctions if a jobseeker refuses two reasonable offers of work. Germany also imposes sanctions, as do the Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark and Norway. A recent study covering international evidence from Germany showed sanctions increase the probability of leaving the welfare system for employment by over 50%. Another study in the Netherlands showed they increased the probability of going into employment by between 36% and 98%.
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Law and Crime
Helen Olivia Bicknell Whately (Conservative, Centre-right): I will come later on to the question about good reasons for sanctioning somebody. We do have to be careful. Examples have been given in this House, and we will have seen this in our own casework, where the reasons do not appear to be good reasons and sometimes they are indeed errors, but we should not base policy on those specific individual examples, although what we should do, as we all do, is follow up on those individual cases and make sure that where errors have been made they are addressed. That is exactly what the appeals system does.
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Labor
Helen Olivia Bicknell Whately (Conservative, Centre-right): I also have a copy of the Bill to hand and the explanatory notes, and that is indeed what I am speaking about I wanted to make sure, however, that I had laid the groundwork on the important role sanctions play in a fair benefits system that is supporting everyone who can work to get into work. That not only reduces the number of people relying on other people’s earnings for income, and not only helps give businesses and public services a much needed supply of workers, but it is generally a good thing for the individuals involved, because we know that work is generally good for us A recent paper by the Royal College of Psychiatrists called "Work and mental health" observed that although work can be a stressor for some people in some circumstances, a comprehensive review of the research shows that work is beneficial to health and wellbeing. It says that when people without work are re-employed they have an improvement in health and wellbeing, while further unemployment leads to deterioration. A lack of work is detrimental to health and wellbeing, and the health status of people of all ages who move off welfare benefits improves We also know children in working households have better outcomes in academic attainment, training and future employment. Work provides a route out of poverty for families and improves children’s wellbeing and life chances as fewer will grow up in workless households. One of the great successes since 2010 has been the fall in the number of children living in workless households, so there are fewer children living in a household where there is often no routine, no rhythm of work, and no role model showing work is something we can, and should, do The hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South mentioned her visit to a jobcentre in South Thanet as part of her work as a member of the Select Committee on Work and Pensions. I have also visited jobcentres in Maidstone and Sittingbourne that serve my constituents and have observed the hard work the staff do to help the people who come to them to get into work. I have been very impressed by my conversations with the work coaches and the active and sincere interest they take in helping their clients get into work—and their celebrations when people succeed, particularly those facing a real challenge to get into work.
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Labor
Helen Olivia Bicknell Whately (Conservative, Centre-right): I agree with the hon. Lady that it would be good to have a consistently high standard of support in jobcentres across the country. I do not agree, however, that a Bill is the right way to achieve that. There are other ways of achieving improvement across all the sectors of our public services. I have done an enormous amount of healthcare work, as she might know, and I do not believe that legislating from the top is necessarily the right way to reduce variation and bring everyone up to the level of the best. There are many ways of doing that that do not involve legislation.
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Government Operations
Helen Olivia Bicknell Whately (Conservative, Centre-right): I am going to deal with that point later in my remarks. As I was saying a moment ago to the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South, legislation is not always the right way to achieve improvement. Personally, I believe that, where possible, it is better to give those who work in the public sector greater autonomy to do a really good job. That gives people an enormous amount of motivation, because they usually go into those jobs because they want to make a difference.
Benefit Claimants Sanctions (Required Assessment) Bill — House of Commons, 2016-12-02
Topic: Labor
Kevin John Foster (Conservative, Centre-right): Does my hon. Friend agree that the example cited by the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South of a jobcentre in South Thanet that was doing really well shows that this is not an issue that requires legislation? This is about ensuring that there is consistent management throughout the system, which does not require a new Bill.