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GOVERNMENT rules on benefit sanctions lead to a “postcode lottery” that forces some into poverty, SNP MP Mhairi Black warned yesterday as she tried to tighten up their application.
Moving the second reading of her private member’s Bill in the Commons, the Paisley & Renfrewshire South MP said jobcentre staff’s mood had an effect on whether claimants are sanctioned or not.
Jobcentre staff do a “tremendous job given the system they have to work with” but that everyone has “bad days,” she said, that could end up ruining someone’s ability to be able to pay for food and every day essentials.
DYLAN MURPHY reports that far from helping people back into work, the sanctions regime is inflicting unnecessary trauma on working-class families
Labour will find increases in the state pension age are unacceptable, just as cuts to the Winter Fuel Allowance, personal independence payments and universal credit are — it needs to change direction immediately, writes PCS general secretary FRAN HEATHCOTE