This week, Parliament passed legislation that will re-instate the right to a fair hearing for jobseekers, who between 2011 and 2013 had lodged an appeal of a sanction decision but who had the right to have their appeal heard removed by the 2013 Jobseekers (Back to Work Schemes) Act 2013.

I welcomed this legislation, but it is extraordinary that we got here in the first place – and has been the result of a punitive DWP culture that has prevailed since the days of the Tory-led Coalition Government.

The Remedial Order passed on Tuesday is a route through which an Act of Parliament can be amended when there is an incompatibility between domestic law and a right under the European Convention on Human Rights. The cases in question go back to 2012, when Caitlin Reilly, an unemployed geology graduate, and Jamieson Wilson, an unemployed driver, brought a legal challenge against the Department for Work and Pensions on the basis that it had forced claimants to take on unpaid work for private companies or risk having their benefits cut through being sanctioned.

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