Informing policy
Giving evidence to the House of Commons
In May 2023, Dr Serena Pattaro gave evidence on the effectiveness of benefit sanctions to the House of Commons Work and Pensions Select Committee.
Reflecting on a review of international data that she led on, Serena drew attention to the importance of investigating the long-term impacts of benefit sanctions. Serena's review (conducted with Prof. Nick Bailey, Dr Evan Williams, Dr Marcia Gibson, Dr Valerie Wells, Prof. Mark Tranmer and Prof. Chris Dribben) shows that benefit sanctions increase the rates of return to work in the short term, but they do so at the expense of pushing people to take lower quality jobs and to experience increased risk of moving back into unemployment. Sanctions have also a wide range of adverse impacts for claimants and their children, including food deprivation, material hardship and health problems.
Serena's evidence, and her work on social security benefits, is instrumental to how policy makers understand the relationship between benefit sanctions, employment, and wider outcomes.
