Benefit sanctions fall under Labour
Figures published by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) show that 109,570 people claiming Universal Credit had their payments docked in May for failing to comply with benefit rules.
This is down from just over 124,000 sanctions just before Labour took power in July and a peak of 137,000 under the Tories in 2023. The overall sanctions rate has fallen from 6.2pc to 5.3pc since Sir Keir Starmer won a landslide victory in July 2024.
The fall comes after the proportion of people claiming benefits where sanctions can be applied fell to a record low, amid a surge in mental health claims from people who say they are too sick to work.
Just 26.6pc – or two million people – can now be subject to sanctions when claiming Britain's main employment benefit. This means three quarters of people now have no conditions tied to their welfare.
This is in stark contrast to 2017, when a series of benefit reforms spearheaded by George Osborne meant 64.8pc of people on benefits faced having them docked if they failed to attend a work placement, or did not show up for a job interview.
Lockdown saw a surge in the number of people who stopped looking for work owing to ill health, with millions now parked on sickness benefits that have no requirement for people to look for work.
Roughly 1,500 people a day have been signed off on incapacity benefits with no work requirements since Labour took power.
Disability benefit claims are also rising, with the Government forced by backbenchers to shelve key reforms designed to reduce the financial burden on the state and encourage more people to go back to work.
Millions of older welfare claimants who have been parked on benefits for years have also been moved onto Universal Credit as Labour completes a shift away from a series of legacy benefits.
Official figures published last week showed that the number of working-age Britons who have been parked on joblessness benefits that do not require them to look for work has climbed by a million since Labour took power.
There are currently 3.7 million Britons – or almost half of those currently claiming Britain's main unemployment benefit – who are now not required to look for a job. That is up from 2.67 million in July 2024, following Labour's landslide victory.
By contrast, the figures published by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) showed that the number of people who have to look for a job as a condition of receiving their benefits fell from 1.65 million to 1.6 million over the same period.
Reforms to the benefits system that would have tackled a lockdown-related surge in benefit payments linked to mental health were shelved following a backlash from Left-wing Labour MPs.
The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has highlighted that just one in 20 people who have been out of work for more than a year ever go back to work.
The tax-and-spending watchdog has also predicted the cost of footing Britain's sickness and disability benefits bill will approach £100bn a year by the end of the decade.
A government spokesman said: 'We know that people face huge barriers to work – which is why we are overhauling jobcentres as part of our Get Britain Working Plan to give people the personalised support they need to get ahead.
'But as we shift the department's focus from welfare to work, it is right that there are obligations to engage with employment support, look for work and to take jobs when they are offered.'
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