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Britain’s benefit sanctions are beyond cruel
Punishing those in need doesn’t work from any perspective — that is why the Tory government is refusing to allow access to its own data. It is clear that we need a total overhaul of the system, writes CLAUDIA WEBBE MP
Sanctions protest
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IT’S almost five years since the Economic and Social Research Council, a government-funded public body, told the UN’s human rights body that the British government’s drive to extend and intensify benefit sanctions “systematically undermines the very idea of economic and social rights as a core component of national citizenship status and/or justifications for such rights on the basis of universal human needs,” making many benefit claimants unable to meet those basic needs for food, warmth and shelter.
The UN agreed, concluding that despite its denialism, the government was breaching the human rights of benefit claimants at every turn. The UN repeated its call as recently as November 2022.
Despite the clarity of the warnings, the government did nothing to improve its treatment of the most marginalised — in fact, since then the situation has only gone downhill. The number of people suffering sanctions hit record levels in 2022.
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