Introduction

The Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) online guidance for recipients of Universal Credit (‘UC’) sets out, ‘the kinds of things that claimants will be required to do in return for receiving [UC]’ (Department for Work and Pensions, 2020). It is, in all but name, a claimant-facing statement of the benefit sanctions regime. In the early days of the COVID-19 crisis, work search requirements and (new) sanctions were suspended for three months from April 2020. If claimants were unable to do ‘the kinds of things’ they are ‘required to do’ as a result of the pandemic, they would not be sanctioned. This guidance was updated on 1 July 2020. The change is detailed in full on the document's gov.uk page:

Those UC recipients who are shielding due to health concerns, self-isolating as a result of symptoms, or are unable to find work or increase their hours due to a decimated labour market, may be forgiven for thinking that the COVID-19 pandemic is still very much in motion. Indeed, the deleted sentence appears to be an uncontroversial statement to even the most hardened advocate of benefit sanctions: removing it implies that sanctions may now arise as a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The re-instatement of sanctions and this change to guidance is illustrative of the issues facing the social security system in this ongoing crisis. Does this pandemic really herald a ‘new normal’ in social security support, or will the state row back quickly? As we enter a deep recession, have the lessons of the last decade of austerity been heeded? Are those same groups hit disproportionately by the austerity agenda – women, lone parents, Black and minority ethic (BME) households, and disabled people – the same being disproportionately affected now?

This chapter cuts across these questions in three sections. The first provides some brief context and an overview of demands currently being placed on the social security system. The second addresses the lessons learnt from a decade of austerity scholarship, and their resurgence in the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic.