Tories Underplay Sanctions Impact

Tory MSP Adam Tomkins embarrassed himself during a Holyrood debate this week, stating that welfare sanctions “affect only a tiny number of claimants”. He cited widely discredited figures from the Department for Work and Pensions which significantly underplay the number of ESA and JSA claimants who have been sanctioned. 
 
Academic experts have described the way that the DWP compiles its figures, which only capture a month-by-month snapshot, as a “gross and systematic misrepresentation” which suppress the full scale of how claimants are being penalised. 

Motherwell and Wishaw MSP Clare Adamson, who spoke in Wednesday’s debate on welfare conditionality, has called on the Scottish Tories to “brush up” on their facts ahead of future Holyrood debates on social security and to pledge to ditch the discredited DWP figures when discussing benefits sanctions. 

Image: MSP Clare Adamson.

Video Below MSP Clare Adamson in action. 

Please download the letter from the UK Statistics Authority critisizing the DWP.