The head of the government’s Universal Credit programme has come under fire from MPs after he was unable to tell them exactly how many claimants are currently being sanctioned.
Independent MP Frank Field said it was “shameful” that Neil Couling – the director general of the government’s flagship six-in-one benefits scheme – could not tell parliament’s work and pensions committee how many people were having their payments docked.
Couling estimated that around 24,000 Universal Credit claimants were currently being sanctioned – but admitted that he only knew the percentage for certain, which was 2.8%.
“Do you not find something shameful that you actually sanction and you don’t actually know the numbers?” Field, who chairs the committee, asked.
“All you have is happy percentages which would suggest there is not much of a problem here. But to be sanctioned for an individual is a 100% issue – they’re not just part of another percentage.”
Couling – whose job description includes making sure Universal Credit is rolled out safely – argued that the caseload for the benefit scheme was growing by 140,000 people a month.
“The caseload is growing every week, every day we get more claims – that’s the nature of the roll out of Universal Credit,” he said. “I don’t think it portrays anything.”
But independent MP Field said he would be “haunted” by the figures if it was his job to oversee the government’s benefits programme.
He and fellow committee member Heidi Allen met a caseworker in Chester last week who told them that she no longer meets people who are not hungry and cold, he told the committee.
“This is in a country that is supposed to have a safety net,” Field said.
“To me, what we have now got is a welfare system which is not providing a safety net but is designed now – even if one does not know the numbers – to push people into destitution, hungry and cold. And I just want you to know the numbers.”
Universal Credit claimants can see their benefits payments cut if they fail to meet strict conditions.
Sanctions can vary in how much of a claimant’s benefit is cut and how long for – but poverty charities including Turn2Us have warned they push families into “debt, rent arrears, foodbank use, mental health issues and destitution”.
Sanctions can last for up to three years if claimants repeatedly fail to meet their agreed conditions.
Justin Tomlinson, the department for work and pensions’ parliamentary under-secretary, said that the use of sanctions was falling at a “significant rate”, adding that sanctioning a claimant should always be a last resort.