SNP calls on UK Government to scrap 'restrictive' DWP benefit sanctions

dailyrecord.co.uk:

The SNP has called on the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to scrap benefits sanctions.The party's social justice spokesperson David Linden asked the UK Government why it had not scrapped the practice in the House of Commons on Monday afternoon.It was announced in the budget that work capability assessments would be scrapped and included as part of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) assessments.Linden criticised this move, saying that the assessments could now be "far more restrictive" than before.He also said that the threat of sanctions should be removed entirely.He said: "The new health and disability paper introduces the new Universal Credit health element through PIP that could be far more restrictive than work capability assessments."Given that the department and in its own published report, which they tried to keep under wraps for many years, shows - what we knew all along - that sanctions don't work, why won't the minister finally do the right thing and just scrap them?"Junior Work and Pensions minister Tom Pursglove said: "I think that these are genuinely common sense reforms that reflect the feedback that we received from disabled people from their representative policy and we will work with them to make sure that we get this right."Replacing the work capability assessment is the right thing to do.

Recognising that we want to concentrate more on what people can do rather than what they can't doing so on a tailored individual basis, and of course we know that there are over 20% of disabled people who could start work within the next two years who want to do that, and with the right support, would."We think that the right way of dealing with that and supporting that employment is to work constructively