Benefit sanctions risk plunging families into food poverty and there is no evidence they work, according to an influential Westminster committee.

The Work and Pensions committee has called for a full independent review of the regime for punishing claimants who are deemed to have broken job centre or employability rules.

The report questions the hardship payment system which is meant to help people facing severe poverty, but which routinely denies people any payment until 15 days after benefits are stopped.

It also criticises the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) for quadrupling the minimum sanction period, and making other changes, without first seeking evidence on the way this will affect claimants.

Overall, the report says, evidence is needed on whether sanctions are effective in making people find work or engage with employment support. Meanwhile it calls for more transparency about the suicides of benefit claimants who have been affected by benefit sanctions.

Ahead of the report's publication today, Dame Anne Begg MP, chair of the work and pensions committee, said: "Recent research suggests benefit sanctions are contributing to food poverty. No claimant should have their benefit payment reduced to zero where they are at risk of severe financial hardship, to the extent of not being able to feed themselves or their families, or pay the rent."

She added: "It is not reasonable to expect people to live without any source of income for two weeks. DWP should make all hardship payments available from day one of a sanction period."

The Aberdeen South MP said the committee agreed that benefits should be conditional, but said the policy should be based on clear evidence about what works to encourage people to take up employment support or get back into work.

Any sanctions regime should also be able to protect vulnerable people so those with mental health problems or learning disabilities, for example, were not left in dire financial straits. "The system as currently applied does not always achieve this," Dame Begg said.

The report points out that 49 so called 'peer reviews' have been carried out internally by the DWP since February 2012 after the death of a benefit claimant. In 33 of these cases, there have been recommendations for changing the system. However the DWP has not revealed how many of these cases involved sanctions or how policies and procedures have changed as a result.

Citizens Advice Scotland, which says its advisors often see people who have been treated harshly or inconsistently, welcomed the report . CAS head of policy Susan McPhee, said MPs were right to call for a review. "We have been calling for such a review for a long time, as it is clear the current sanction regime is nowhere near fit for purpose."

Sanctions should be used appropriately, with discretion and as a last resort, she said. "Our evidence shows that often they are being applied unfairly and without warning or explanation, leaving people with very little money or none at all."

The Church of Scotland was part of an alliance of churches which published a report earlier this month claiming sanctions harmed families. The Rev Sally Foster-Fulton, Convener of the Church of Scotland's Church and Society Council, said: "It is clear sanctions are doing more harm than good.

"Right now benefit sanctions are unjust, excessively punitive and fail to even meet the DWP's stated aim of helping people into work."

A DWP spokesman said:"As the report recognises, sanctions are a vital backstop in the welfare system and are only used in a small minority of cases where claimants don't do all they can to look for work.

"Every day Jobcentre Plus advisers work hard to help people into jobs, and we continue to spend around £94bn a year on working age benefits to provide a safety net that supports millions of people."