Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Social Justice – in the Senedd at 1:39 pm on 29 March 2023.
Well, I've already cited the evidence from the Economic and Social Research Council, and also the Institute for Public Policy Research, about how sanctions deliver poor outcomes and don't incentivise people to get into work. What we need is a social security system that actually focuses less on compliance and more on helping people—helping claimants into work. What we need is personalised job support, not sanctions. This is where we need to develop our approach, and I ask the Department for Work and Pensions to publish their research on benefit sanctions so that we can see how they can justify that.
But I have to say, in terms of the fact that we have a got a more generous childcare offer, and indeed, with Flying Start, a much more generous childcare offer for those who most need it as well, in terms of parents returning to work through education and training, that's not being offered in the UK Government childcare offer.
But let me just go back to the sanctions. The fact that primary carers of children as young as one or two will be required to search for work even when one parent is already working, and again the conditionality and the sanctions apply—. It's very hard for those who are most vulnerable, who are hardest hit by sanctions. Can I just give you the evidence from Wales? Across the UK and in Wales, there are a growing number of individuals seeking advice from Citizens Advice in relation to these inappropriate conditionality requirements and, in fact, recently, between 2021 and 2022, there was a 20 per cent increase in the number of people on universal credit asking for help with issues relating to conditionality, claimant commitments and sanctions. This is not a welfare state. I think also it's going to be really difficult in terms of the impact on disabled people trying to access employment and state benefits.