Churches unite to criticise ‘harsh’ welfare sanctions
A HARD-HITTING report from the Churches this week highlighted the severity and impact of benefit sanctions under Welfare Reform on the vulnerable and the young.
The report, ‘Time to Rethink Benefit Sanctions’, was prompted by churches witnessing an increasing level of people at foodbanks.
Jointly published by the Baptist Union of Great Britain, Church Action on Poverty, the Church in Wales, the Church of Scotland, the Methodist Church and the United Reformed Church, it unearths data that was featured on Channel 4’s Dispatches episode on Monday, ‘Britain’s Benefit Crackdown’.
Following the report findings, the Churches are calling for an independent review of benefit sanctions in order to avoid what the Churches see as the ‘deliberate imposition of hunger’.
The coalition is asking the Government to suspend sanctions against families with children and those suffering from mental health problems.
The Archbishop of Wales, Dr Barry Morgan, said: “The findings of this report are disturbing. It exposes a system that is harsh in the extreme, penalising the most vulnerable of claimants by the withdrawal of benefits for weeks at a time.
“Most worryingly, it appears from DWP guidance, quoted in the report, that deprivation and hunger are knowingly being used as a punishment for quite trivial breaches of benefit conditions.
“Employers would not be allowed to stop someone’s wages for a month the first time they were 10 minutes late for an appointment, but this is the kind of sanction that is being imposed on some of the most vulnerable people in our society, including those with mental and physical health problems.
“We are concerned that the problem may be even worse in Wales, recognising the higher levels of poverty in this country. No Welsh data, however, is included in the report because despite submitting a Freedom of Information request to the DWP three months ago, we are still waiting for a reply. There is supposed to be a 20-day turnaround period for Freedom of Information requests. We are pursuing this.”
The report notes that even when the benefit sanctions system is used as intended, rather than misapplied, it promotes a sense of hardship, which the report says, ‘includes both the threat and the use of hunger as an instrument of policy’.
Among the recommendations from the report, the Churches Coalition is asking for the removal of the two-week waiting period before the ‘non-vulnerable’ can receive hardship payments.
Niall Cooper, Director of Church Action on Poverty said: “If you commit a crime, no criminal court in the UK is allowed to make you go hungry as a punishment. But if you’re late for an appointment at the Jobcentre, they can remove all your income and leave you unable to feed you or your family for weeks at a time.
“Most people in this country would be shocked if they knew that far from providing a safety net, the benefit sanctions policy is currently making thousands of people destitute. This policy must be reviewed urgently.”