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THE GREENS accused the government yesterday of trying to cover up the true number of jobless people who have had their meagre welfare payments snatched away from them.
One in six people claiming jobseeker’s allowance could have been hit by the Tories’ brutal sanctions scheme — almost three times the claimed 6 per cent.
Green Party spokesman Jonathan Bartley demanded that the government comes clean after a response to a parliamentary question asked by Baroness Jenny Jones confirmed that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) had dished out 605,592 sanctions to benefit claimants last year.
The DWP used a statistical sleight of hand to cover up the shocking scale, giving just a “monthly ratio” — the average number of sanctions in a month divided by the total number of unemployed people — of 6 per cent.
But getting a better idea of the extent of sanctions, as more and more people have their lifeline payments taken away over the whole year, involves dividing the annual sanctions total by the full unemployed figure for the year.
In 2014 about 3.6 million people had to sign on the dole, which suggests that about 17 per cent had been hit.
“Once again, the government is misrepresenting figures to cover up the full extent of its pernicious sanctions regime. The DWP clearly has something to hide,” charged Mr Bartley.
It would not be the first fiddling of figures by the department and its head Iain Duncan Smith, who jumped for joy when George Osborne spelled out his plans to tighten the screws on Britain’s most vulnerable in July’s “emergency” Budget.
He has, for example, been caught out making false claims about the now £20,000 benefit cap pushing people into work — instead, by slashing housing benefit, it just makes it harder for them to pay their rent — and spouting nonsense about disabled people to further deprive them of vital welfare cash.
“The use of sanctions is clearly far more widespread than the government is admitting and this is taking a terrible toll, not just on jobseekers but also on their families and children,” said Mr Bartley.
