A desperate mother was told to perform a sex act for food after she was left destitute under Universal Credit.
The woman said an exploitative shop manager offered her £40 of stock in exchange for oral sex after he caught her shoplifting supplies.
‘Ms J’ – who said long waits for the six-in-one benefit left her unable to pay basic bills – said in evidence handed to MPs: “What could I do?
“It was that or have the police called. I just did it. I just kept thinking ‘please don’t call the police’.”
The woman from London was one of a string of anonymous benefit claimants whose journey into “survival sex” is exposed in a harrowing report by MPs.
The Work and Pensions Committee said the five-week wait for people’s first payment is often why people say they are forced to exchange sex to meet their needs.
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Their report today demands the Department for Work commission a full review on improving services for claimants who turn to survival sex.
MPs also demand the DWP cut the five-week wait for payment and have a “proper evaluation framework” of people’s “lived experience” on UC.
Ms J’s experiences were shared with the inquiry by a welfare rights adviser.
She said: “The manager said if I gave him [oral sex] he’d let me off. What could I do? It was that or have the police called. I just did it. I just kept thinking ‘please don’t call the police’.
“Anyway, he said afterwards that if I did the same next week he’d let me have forty quid’s worth of stock. It seemed like a fortune. […] In the end, I held out for two weeks.
“I got my [UC] money, and again it was short, and again it was gone on bills before I’d even thought of food. So, I left the baby with next door and went down to the shop […] It’s been like that for months now.”
Claimants can obtain advances to bridge the five-week gap for first payment – but they have to be paid back out of future benefits.
The MPs were sent testimony of another woman, SM from Stockton-on-Tees, who started “sex working every few days” to pay rent.
A third, Jackie, began drinking and taking amphetamines and “returned to selling sex on the streets after nearly 30 years”.
A fourth woman in Bristol began seeing a “sugar daddy who she was not seeing before”, the MPs heard.
The MPs also heard testimony in person from four women which was so powerful, it prompted ministers to U-turn on their insistence UC did not cause “survival sex”.
Ministers previously said there was no “causative link” between the six-in-one benefit and survival sex.
But they then said they would look into any possible links after minister Will Quince attended the private hearing with four women in Parliament.
One of the four women, a 21-year-old carer, told MPs how she turned to sex work to cope when the benefit left her £52 to live on.
The woman said her lack of cash left her sofa-surfing and scrabbling together cash for tampons or a Pot Noodle.
Another of the four women told the inquiry that she was about to be moved on to Universal Credit and would lose around £200 a month.
“The thought of going into debt and having no money is really frightening. I have children. I can’t do that. I will sell my body,” she said.
Chairman Frank Field hailed ministers for U-turning after initially issuing “defensive and trite” response.
But he said: “Welcome though that was, that cannot be the end of it.
“The DWP, having belatedly acknowledged that there is a problem, must take the steps to resolve it.”
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A DWP spokesman said: “We take all evidence presented to the Committee very seriously and are determined to ensure that no one finds themselves in this position.
“We are committed to providing a safety net for the most vulnerable in society and have made improvements to Universal Credit such as extending advances, removing waiting days, and introducing housing benefit run on.”
