20/11/2013 Newsnight Scotland

and even disgusting. Northern Ireland's attempts to come to terms

with its toxic past remain far from resolved.

Tonight on Newsnight Scotland: Benefits docked four main

infringement of the rules. We will ask why there has been is upturn in

benefit sanctions. And we will speak to First Minister

of Wales who will give us the benefit of his wisdom on the

Independence debate. Many people are being issued with

benefit sanctions, having their benefits taken away for a few weeks

or up to years. The number of sanctions has risen steeply and

critics say some of the reasons seem shockingly trivial. As this about

treating people fairly or cutting the welfare bill?

One Wednesday, Stevie went to get his benefits from the post office

and they weren't there. He wasn't told why. Since then his life has

been extremely hard and even now he is so afraid of reprisals he asked

to be anonymous. I went to the Jobcentre to find out

there was no money and they told me I had been sanctioned. He never told

me why I was sanctions but that I was sanctioned for four weeks. The

worrying thing is that the receptionists told me that I was

lucky it was not for longer. Friends to get in turn to have him

round for dinner. I was desperate. The weight just fell off. I would be

lucky if I ate one meal everyday. The mental health side of it was

probably the worst. I've never felt so low in my life.

Sanctions are a way of saying that your benefits are being stopped.

Everyday in Scotland, 220 of these are applied. They are normally for

failure to provide evidence that you are looking for work, failure to

accept or apply for a job or failure to turn up for training. Behind the

statistics are real people. We can forget that what we're

talking about is having no money. That means no food, no heating for

your family, it means people 's physical and mental health going

downhill rapidly. People are going to foodbanks. We are talking about

an issue of justice, not charity. People are contemplating suicide or

committing a crime to go to prison where they will at least be fed.

Two years ago, they dealt with a 25% rise in the number of new cases of

people being sanctioned. Last year it dealt with 43% more people.

Citizens advice Scotland says it is pushing people further into poverty.

We are seeing a rise in claimants being sanctioned but also the

penalties are harsher. For the worst offences, it can go up to three

years. Citizens Advice Scotland are not

against sanctions. The Department for Work and Pensions give us this

statement. One MSP queries by 220 new sanctions

every day is too much. Who says it is too many?

If anyone feels they are being treated inappropriately then they

should appeal it or contact their MP. The application of sanctions is

essential to the fair application of the welfare system and it would be

unfair to think that anybody was getting off with not applying the

rules. Like back there is anecdotal evidence that part of the problem

lies in poorly trained staff at Jobcentres.

Proper training is the way to go. If we can achieve consistency,

complaints will diminish. And other countries, there is

evidence that sanctions can work. When the economy is doing well,

people can get into some kind of job, even if it doesn't last for

very long. But when the economy is doing badly, it is much more likely

that we will be pushing people, not just out of the benefit system, but

into crying, addictions and we risk seeing the growth of state-sponsored

destitution, not just increased poverty.

This website is for anyone to post their stories of sanctions. Some are

at the extreme end. So our sanctions too much? Unfair and pushing people

into destitution? Or are they ate their way to manage the benefit

system? No one from the Department of the

war contention is that back work and pension or the Conservatives or the

Liberal Democrats would come on the programme.

The person on the film who says he was given no reason why he was

sanctions, is that supposed to happen? That is a very difficult

question to answer because so many people have said that they don't get

a reason or they don't understand the reason.

If they do get series and then it is not always clear why it has been set

at the level it has. The sanctions start at four weeks but for many

people they rapidly move on to a 13 week sanctioned.

The whole point of the sanction is to deter you from doing it again but

if you do not know what it is, it is difficult to do that.

There are different reasons why people are sanctions. Someone could

be sanctioned for being late for an interview once I'm and the next time

for failing to carry out a direction and they wouldn't necessarily

understand that they go up the tariff and get gritter sanctions as

a result. There has been a rise in people

getting sanctions but isn't that precisely the point of these new

rules. The government is trying to say, if you want job-seeker's

Allowance, they have to demonstrate you will look for a job and if you

cannot do that you won't get the allowance?

I'm not sure that is the point of the new rules. They said it was

important to make things clearer and more regular and also to make the

sanctions tougher. What I'd do not think anybody had signalled was

really quite staggering increase that there has been in the sheer

number of sanctions. More than 50,000 people in Scotland in just

under one year. Not only those 50,000 people, but nearly another

40,000 have been threatened with sanctions and have left their

efforts that smack benefits subsequently. It is probably about

one and employed person in five that is affected by this. It is one of

these things that is difficult for outsiders to know what is going on

here. There are so many people involved,

it would be pretty amazing if some people would sometimes feel they

were being treated unfairly. Using to be suggesting that there could be

something more than what you would expect.

Yes. There are people like the man in your fill that think it is she

fall and they do not want to talk to people about. But the great that the

guilty is that when we are talking about such a mass of people, it is

threatening the security that the benefit system offers.

There have been allegations that Jobcentres are setting targets to

increase the number of sanctions they are applying. Is there any

evidence for this? There is and isn't. What happened

was that the Guardian put together a dossier of letters and e-mails which

provided that evidence and that evidence was reviewed and what's the

Department of work and says about these letters and e-mails is that it

is not part of our current policy. This is even though the targets are

there in black and white. Is this sanctions regime addressing

a real problem? Everybody knows that some people claiming benefits are at

it but whether it is a few people or a systemic problem is a different

thing. Is this targeting a significant problem? I think it is

because the numbers are so large. The sort of things I have been told

from people working in the field is that we do have people with chaotic

lifestyles, the agencies are trying to get them support, they are trying

to get their lives sorted in some way, to get some sort of order, and

what is happening is that these are the people who are most likely to be

sanctioned. They are most likely not to turn up for an interview. When

they have no money as well, it makes things doubly difficult and

undermines the efforts of the welfare state to rehabilitate these

people. Thank you for joining us. The Scottish parliament and Welsh

assembly were conceived within weeks of each other, but as the

parliaments have grown up, the ties between them have in loose. Today

the Welsh First Minister was in Scotland to make his contribution to

the independence debate and his fellow first minister here will not

agree with what he had to say. It's no secret that Colin Jones was

initially reluctant to travel north and in the prounion drum at least

until Westminster gave its response to the silk commission. That came on

Monday when the Treasury set up details of borrowing powers. Having

got to much what he wanted, the Welsh First Minister has wasted no

time in honouring his side of the deal. The subtext of his speech

tonight was clear. If you stay inside the union, you can still cut

a decent deal with Westminster. But the SNP says we have heard it all

before. We will have people who say vote no, it's better for you, you

will get that, Scotland has been here before, we were here in 1979

when they are all those promises which came to naught. People who

live here, people who work here, will take their own decision.

"Better Together" will be hoping Colin Jones 's visit will inject

positivity into the prounion campaign. Whether that is how his

message is received is a different matter. I am joined now by the First

Minister of Wales, Colin Jones. The sceptics say you only hear

campaigning for Scotland to stay part of the UK because the Coalition

Government has given you a shed load of new powers. I am not an agent for

the UK Government. I am here to put the Welsh view in terms of what's

happening in Scotland. The allegation is in that you are an

agent of the government, it is that you said publicly that he would find

it difficult to campaign for the union unless you got the new powers

for Wales. And having got them, your side of the deal is you are here.

The timing is suggestive, you got the new powers on Wednesday and it's

Wednesday! You are right, what I said was I wanted to be able to go

to Scotland and show people that evolution delivered. They have done

that, I have got the package that the people of Wales wanted from the

UK Government, and I think it's a good example to show that

independence isn't needed, because even when you have got governments

of different political views in Cardiff and London, it still

possible for the devolution settlement to be flexible enough.

What if they haven't given you that, would you not be here? It

would be difficult. You say, you come here to say devolution works

and they had not to be the package, but they have done, that's the

point. That illustrates the people of Wales and Scotland at devolution

can work and there is no need for independent in order to satisfy the

aspirations of Wales and Scotland. This attitude of conditional

enthusiasm for the United Kingdom is rather odd, coming from a Labour

politician. She might expect nationalists, whether biking route

or the SNP, to play that kind of game, but I would think you were in

favour of the UK irrespective of what you got. You make it sound as

if the alternative was I would come here and campaign for independence,

that was never the case. I needed to have the tools in my pocket to make

sure I was effective in campaigning for the union, and in fairness, the

tools have been delivered. The SNP say the changes which you want, or

might consider, pressing in the funding formula for devolved

countries, would be that Scotland 's but it could be cut. Is this

something you are pressing for? What we want is fair funding across the

whole of the UK. We know Wales is underfunded. This is not targeting

Scotland. It's a curious argument for the SNP to use to say, on the

one hand we benefit by ?4 billion from our membership of the UK and

then say, what we want is independence. These things don't

seem to run together. Clearly there is a feeling in Wales that you don't

get a good deal, what is it exactly... I think the idea of

cutting the Scottish but it came from a report which the Welsh

parliament committed, what are you arguing for? -- the Scottish budget.

We know we are down in terms of our funding because that's the way the

formula operates at the moment. We have gone a little way towards

addressing that by introducing the Barnett floor, which means

convergent and spending in Wales and England. , that was supported by the

Scottish Government. From our point of view, we are keen to see a fair

funding formula across the whole UK. So you do want the Barnett formula

replaced with someone else? It will happen in time, but what's important

is when it does, there is agreement across the UK, it's not imposed by

the Treasury in London. That is the best way forward. To get an agreed

deal. In your speech, you talked about the SNP 's idea of a currency

union with what remains of the UK. You make the point strongly that

while it's up to Scotland to decide whether to become independent, it's

up to you and others in the UK to decide whether to have a currency

union. What is your view on that? You appear to be saying, like George

Osborne, that you don't think it's a good idea. If an independent nation

wants to join a currency union, it is a matter for those inside the

currency union. If you have one, how does it work? You either have an

independent central wake, so independence takes you nowhere, or

you have a scenario where different governments have two agreed to take

action at different times, that just needs to -- leads to dithering. In

2011 there was decision needed within hours to save banks. That

would affect us in Wales as it would affect England and Northern Ireland

as Wales -- as well. So we would need the agreement of what was left

of the UK. Can I just ask you a yes or no question -- the new income tax

powers that you have been given as part of this deal would only be

possible after a referendum. Can you call a referendum? What they are

saying to us is the mechanism would be in place that if there is a vote

of assembly members and in Parliament then a referendum could

be held. So that's what we are expecting to do. Thanks for joining

us. I look at the papers: that's all we have time for. I am

back tomorrow. Some of the show is making the

dusting of snow to take us into the morning. -- showers. It will stay

dry and bright throughout much of the day, some parts of South-East

Scotland and North East England will continue to cease showers reading in

on the scroll north-easterly winds. Another strong wind in East Anglia,

making it feel especially cold. Out towards the West, the showers are

few and far between. Many will have a dry and bright afternoon with good

spells of sunshine. Not especially warm out there. From Northern

Ireland, compared with the conditions we saw today and in

western Scotland, the winds much lighter. Good spells of sunshine

here, but temperatures not particularly warm.