Demos Against Benefit Sanctions

Public sector workers across Scotland are demonstrating outside job centres opposing benefit sanctions.

Unite says benefit penalties are taking place on "an industrial scale".

The union says 153, 000 Scots have had payments cut or stopped without warning over the past two years.

Gill Thompson, whose brother, David Clapson, died after being sanctioned will be handing in her 211,822-name petition at the DWP - calling on the Prime Minister to investigate the widespread use of benefits sanctions.
 
Mr Clapson, a vulnerable diabetic ex-soldier, died starving and destitute in 2013 because he was penalised by the job centre for missing a meeting. His sister is demanding answers, saying:
 
“Benefits sanctions are completely out of control. I want to know how ministers who state everything is done to support the vulnerable can justify their actions leaving people destitute, driving them to food banks, and leading to starvation and death. Do we want to live in a society where the vulnerable are victimised – I certainly do not.”
 
Currently, money can be cut for arriving late at a job centre, missing an appointment to go to a funeral, or even failing to apply for a job – while waiting to start a new job.
 
Unite says it's not prepared to stand idle, claiming the coalition government has failed to help people make ends meet.
 
Commenting Jamie Caldwell, Unite community coordinator, said: “This government is attacking the unemployed for unemployment and treating claimants worse than criminals fined in the courts. Decisions on guilt are made in secret with the claimant not even allowed to be present to explain their case. 
 
“Far from helping people back into work, sanctions undermine physical and mental health. They cause hardship, damage relationships, create homelessness and drive people to food banks, payday lenders, and to crime. 
 
“There is no justification for this grotesque cruelty by the government. Unite is calling on the DWP to end benefit sanctions as this situation can’t be allowed to go on in the 6th richest country in the world.”