Martin Johnstone is pleased to see the government bowing to public pressure to rethink sanctions and calls for more of the same on tax credits
Last week Iain Duncan Smith announced a number of welcome changes to the system of job sanctions, including proposals to pilot a system in which there will be a 14-day delay to job sanctions being imposed in order to give claimants the right to demonstrate that they are being wrongly punished.
This is good news. It makes sense and hopefully it will end the appalling situation which I hear about regularly, and which I have heard denied by officials, whereby people only discover that they have had their benefits stopped when they try to withdraw money to live on and there isn’t any.
The change of heart on the part of the Department of Work and Pensions is evidence of the power of people to change policy
Martin Johnstone
Before we get carried away here, however, let’s be clear what has been conceded. It is to pilot a system in which people will have the right to prove their innocence before they are found guilty. In making this concession, the Secretary of State is simply bringing the way that Job Centres operate into line with the way that our courts work: you are presumed innocent until proven guilty.
Nonetheless, it is good to acknowledge this change of heart and to say thank you to Mr Duncan Smith and his colleagues. Thank you.
The real thanks, however, is due to the Department of Work and Pensions Select Committee and, even more, the many organisations, pressure groups, churches and decent human beings who have been making the case for many months that the current system of benefit sanctions is immoral and unjust and needs to be completely overhauled. That demand – for a complete review – remains in place. We need to keep the pressure up. Thankfully our politicians are listening.
The change of heart on the part of the Department of Work and Pensions is evidence of the power of people to change policy. So where do we go next? An obvious target would be to encourage a rethink from the Chancellor on his plans to cut family tax credits, a policy it appears increasingly obvious will not achieve his stated aim of encouraging people into sustainable paid employment but rather force more families, including children, into grinding and damaging poverty.
