Two snipets from the House of Commons on the issue of Mental Health provided for your information.
1. Written Answer on Mental Health Discrimination.
Adrian Sanders (Torbay, Liberal Democrat) | Hansard source
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if he will make it his policy to increase public funding aimed at reducing levels of discrimination on grounds of mental health.
Jonathan R Shaw (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Disabled People; Minister for the South East), Department for Work and Pensions; Chatham & Aylesford, Labour) | Hansard source
We are committed to ending disability discrimination, including on the grounds of mental health, and are targeting resources in a number of areas to ensure that disabled people have the opportunity to benefit from the positive impact on health and well-being thatwork can bring.
Through the "Employ ability" programme, we are engaging with employers to improve their understanding of disability and their attitudes towards employing disabled people. Employ ability activity is aimed at small to medium-sized employers and is being rolled out to Scotland, Wales and seven English regions between
Access to Work helps around 24,000 disabled people take up or stay in work annually by helping to fund specialist equipment, such as writing support software, reading rulers or a Job Coach who can work with the customer to help them develop strategies for organising their work. The Access to Work budget has been increased from £15 million in 1994-95 to £69 million in 2008-09. In the White Paper, "Raising Expectations andIncreasing Support", we made a commitment to double the budget for Access to Work. This will be a major expansion of the support we can offer to disabled people to help them get and sustain employment. We estimate that this could potentially double the number of people helped annually by 2013-14.
The Government's response to Dame Carol Black's review of the health of Britain's working age population set out our plans to launch a range of initiatives to improve working age health and well-being, including mental health. These include the development of the first ever cross-Government National Mental Health and Employment Strategy which will bring employment and health services closer together, support employers and health care professionals and tackle issues such as discrimination and stigma.
We have also improved and strengthened the Disability Discrimination Act to provide disabled people with a full and comprehensive set of enforceable rights in all areas of life, including in employment. The Disability Discrimination Act provides protection from disability discrimination for anyone who meets the Act's definition of a disabled person. A person with a mental health condition will therefore be covered by the provisions of the Act if the effect of their impairment meets the various elements of the definition.
2. Clause 2 debate on Welfare White Paper.
Paul Rowen (Rochdale, Liberal Democrat) Link to this | Hansard source
I beg to move amendment 47, in clause 2, page 7, line 5, after ‘circumstances’, insert
‘including regard to that person’s mental health and any specific mental health needs that person may have’.
Jimmy Hood (Lanark & Hamilton East, Labour) Link to this | Hansard source
Amendment 51, in schedule 1, page 59, line 18, at end insert
‘and circumstances where it can be demonstrated that a person has left employment voluntarily because of an employer’s failure to make reasonable adjustments concerning their mental health problems.’.
Amendment 52, in schedule 1, page 60, line 39, after ‘account’, insert
‘, including that person’s mental health and any specific mental health needs that person may have’.
Amendment 78, in clause 8, page 14, line 11, at end insert
‘including regard to that person’s mental health and any specific mental health needs that person may have.’.
Amendment 87, in clause 24, page 34, line 28, after ‘cause’, insert
New clause 5—Entitlement to tailored employment and career support—
‘(1) All new ESA claimants and existing Incapacity Benefit claimants who are migrated to ESA, who have a diagnosed mental health problem which impacts on their ability to undertake work, will be entitled to an assessment carried out by, or linked to, Access to Work to determine what reasonable adjustments may improve the likelihood of retention should they find employment. This assessment must be carried out before the claimant may be compelled to undertake any compulsory work-related activity.
(2) The assessment will include evidence gathering from agencies responsible for a person’s employment support and for the provision of health services where appropriate and must include at least one interview with the claimant themselves.
(3) Any reasonable adjustments, recommended by the assessment, will be funded through Access to Work and will be available to any employer wishing to employ the claimant. Available funding for reasonable adjustments will be communicated to employers by a claimant’s employment adviser and will be transferable to a new employer in the event that the claimant moves jobs or employers.
(4) The assessment will be reviewed regularly and/or when the claimant moves jobs or employers to identify any changes to the adjustments required by the claimant.’.
Paul Rowen (Rochdale, Liberal Democrat) Link to this | Hansard source
I wish to speak to amendments 47, 50, 51 and 52, all of which I tabled. They deal with certain categories of people with mental health needs.
Any direction relating to specific work-related activity should take account of a person’s mental health and concurrent needs. This relates to our issues with the qualifications of Jobcentre Plus staff and the way in which they will make directions when making decisions regardingwork-related activity. Employment advisers should take a person’s mental health into account when drawing up action plans or programmes of activity, and amendment 47 has been designed to protect claimants with mental health problems from being asked to undertake an activity that might be harmful to their health.
Amendment 50 relates to schedule 1. Although we had this discussion earlier, it is clear that mental health illnesses fluctuate for many people. It would be wrong if an individual’s fluctuating mental health was not treated as a good cause for not attending a work-focused interview. We wish to put protection for people in that position in the Bill. Were such a person to fail to attend an interview, one of the good causes accepted without argument should be that that person has a fluctuating mental health illness—we think that that is reasonable. We would expect the personal adviser to accept that and thus not to consider applying sanctions.
John Mason (Glasgow East, Scottish National Party) Link to this | Hansard source
Although I anticipate that the Minister will say that we cannot put anything extra in the Bill to cover issues such as mental health, because there are so many other things that we could put in, does the hon. Gentleman agree that health and mental health issues are really worth underlining in the Bill?
Paul Rowen (Rochdale, Liberal Democrat) Link to this | Hansard source
I agree. As I said this morning, concerns have been raised about various aspects of the Bill and its overarching scope. It is important to place safeguards in the Bill so that it is clear to both the claimant and the personal adviser what is a just cause. It is reasonable that we should do that.
Amendment 51 would insert a provision about reasonable adjustments into schedule 1. We support the fact that more and more people who were previously consigned to incapacity benefit will be supported back into employment. However, there must be an onus on the employer to take into account that person’s needs. There have been circumstances in which someone has returned to work and found that the support that they were promised did not materialise. We believe that it is reasonable for someone not to continue an activity because of an employer’s failure to provide the support that was promised. That might happen because the employer did not, in all good faith, appreciate what the support might involve. If we are considering people with a fluctuating mental illness, it is difficult to prescribe the support that someone will need, because that will vary over time and due to circumstances. If an employer is not willing to accept that, it might be a reason why a person is unable to continue an activity. We believe that it is reasonable to accept that that can be a reason why a person has had to withdraw from an activity, which is why I tabled amendment 51.
Amendment 52 would insert into schedule 1 the words
“including that person’s mental health and any specific mental health needs that that person may have.”
Again, decisions to access sanctions against the claimant should take account of a person’s specific mental health needs. The Bill allows employment advisers to sanction claimants who have failed to comply with their requirements by withdrawing benefits. There needs to be a very specific safeguard to ensure that a person will not be penalised if they fail to comply because of a particular illness. That comes down to the fact that there needs to be an understanding of the fluctuating nature of mental illness and how although, in an ideal world, we can set up one set of circumstances, a person might need a totally different level of support two or three months down the line. We want to get some sort of commitment from the Government that if it is not possible to take account of mental illnesses that may affect someone’s ability to undertake tasks, there will not necessarily be a sanction and a loss of a benefit. We believe that that is the right way forward.
Mark Harper (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; Forest of Dean, Conservative) Link to this | Hansard source
I shall speak in support of amendment 78 and new clause 5. Amendment 78 largely covers the same ground as that addressed by the hon. Member for Rochdale. It would insert into clause 8 a provision with regard to someone’s
“mental health and any specific mental health needs”.
Clause 8 is titled “Power to direct claimant to undertake specific work-related activity”. It specifically relates to the reasonableness of directions that may be given by the Secretary of State and says that, when judging whether such a direction is reasonable, the Secretary of State or someone acting on his behalf should take into account the person’s mental health or their mental health needs.
We tabled the amendment to probe the extent to which the Government’s regulations on work activity will adequately cover someone’s health requirements. It was also tabled specifically to consider the ability of Jobcentre Plus staff and to determine whether, following the training that they will get, they will have the skills necessary to take into account someone’s mental health needs themselves, or whether they would refer them to a professional who was able to do so. I should like some clarification on that.
Mind kindly supplied a briefing note in which it suggested new clause 5, which I thought was worth tabling. I do not propose to press it to aDivision, but I want to explore Mind’s ideas about Access to Work. The Minister will know that Access to Work may be used by someone once they get into work, when their employer can have an assessment done to see what help they need. However, under the new clause, prior to getting employment, a new ESA claimant, or an existing incapacity benefit claimant with a mental health problem who had moved to ESA, would be able to get an assessment through Access to Work to determine what reasonable adjustments they might need to improve their ability to get a job and, importantly, to retain it. That assessment would have to be carried out before that claimant was compelled to undertake any compulsory work-related activity. It would be possible to fund any reasonable adjustments recommended in the assessment through Access to Work, and that would give an employer the confidence that the cost attached to taking on a person with adjustments to theirworking routines, which might affect the way that they were going to employ them, would be funded. That would be a change to the way in which Access to Work works. I want to test the Government, to see whether they think such a proposal is worthy of exploration, and to find out the direction in which they might be going.
Access to Work recently had its budget doubled, which we welcomed. The present Minister for disabled people, the Under-Secretary of Statefor Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford, and his predecessors have said that Access to Work is one of the Government’s best-kept secrets and that they do not want it to be so. New clause 5 might be a way to improve the situation.
Tony McNulty (Minister of State (Welfare Reform; Minister for London), Department for Work and Pensions; Harrow East, Labour) Link to this | Hansard source
I would not necessarily include new clause 5 in what I am about to say, but, in essence, we are being asked to provide for things that are already provided for. We already have provisions to ensure that a person’s health is always considered, so there is no need for that to be prescribed in the Bill. We say clearly that a person’s circumstances have to be taken fully into account, and I am at a loss to know what definition of “person’s circumstances” would preclude a consideration of either physical or mental health.
It is important that the array of conditions is taken into account. However, I caution the hon. Member for Rochdale about—I hesitate to use the phrase “undue specificity” again—specifying what he requests in the Bill. People might feel good if they get those words into the Bill, but they would not do the individuals on whom the policy is focused any favours. Allowing the flexibility for a broad range of definitions of people’s circumstances to be put in regulations will afford the greatest possible breadth of definition. I am comfortable with the Bill as it stands, because we want that flexibility in regulation, not least because regulations can be adjusted far more easily than primary legislation. If we went down the road of undue specificity and put too much in the Bill, but later found that we had left something out, we would have to wait for another legislative vehicle before we could alter the primary legislation.
Tony McNulty (Minister of State (Welfare Reform; Minister for London), Department for Work and Pensions; Harrow East, Labour) Link to this | Hansard source
The hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but that is a matter of fact, unless he wants a social security Bill every year, regardless of the circumstances, with all that would mean for what we are trying to do to reform and simplify this area. Things should be as straightforward as possible. There is broad consensus among Committee members about the need for flexibility, but we cannot have flexibility while we are trying to define such things in the Bill.
I accept the comments made by the hon. Member for Glasgow, East about mental illness, and I accept what others have said about having due regard to people’s experiences of domestic violence, or their need to help members of their family, and the barriers that such circumstances might present to work-related activities or any part of the journey. There are, quite deliberately, a host of personal circumstances that canand should be taken into account, but we do future users no favours by over-defining things.
I am glad that the hon. Member for Forest of Dean has recognised that we have doubled the Access to Work moneys. He will know that we are piloting flexibility around Access to Work—in London, in the first instance. I agree with my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary that it is one of our best-kept secrets, but going down the road of new clause 5 would be a tad impractical simply because it would be impossible to determine what reasonable adjustments someone might need until one knew what job they were going to do, so there is almost a circular deficiency to the argument. Do I accept that there should be some greater flexibility regarding Access to Work? Yes, I do, and we will look with interest at what the London pilot comes up with. For such a potentially vulnerable group, we should, in all practical circumstances, do what works. Newclause 5 might create extra bureaucracy and add significant costs, so while the idea and sentiment behind it are certainly worth exploring, I would not put it in the Bill. I shall therefore rather tediously—I might change the record once or twice at a later stage—ask hon. Members not to press their amendments.
Tony McNulty (Minister of State (Welfare Reform; Minister for London), Department for Work and Pensions; Harrow East, Labour) Link to this | Hansard source
With the greatest respect, the hon. Gentleman is defining things. If he were to put something in the Bill that was separate from regulations, with all that that implies, it would prevail over all other personal circumstances. That is precisely why we need to leave things general and flexible, which would be in the interests of the vulnerable people whom the hon. Gentleman seeks to help.
Mark Harper (Shadow Minister, Work & Pensions; Forest of Dean, Conservative) Link to this | Hansard source
The hon. Gentleman and the Minister are talking at cross purposes. This discussion has been helpful because the Minister has been able to explain to the Committee the direction that will be taken when his officials draft the regulations and he introduces them. To that extent, it has been helpful that the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives have tabled these amendments, because the Minister has been able to explain that mental health will be one of the important factors taken into account in the regulations. We are comfortable that that has been encompassed.
The Minister is right when he says that specifying in the Bill one set of circumstances, but not all of them, would create the danger of putting one ahead of the other, which I would not want. I would not want mental health needs to take precedence over other circumstances that might be equally important, and I think that that is how we square the circle.
Paul Rowen (Rochdale, Liberal Democrat) Link to this | Hansard source
I understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying, and we have tabled amendments that deal with other areas of concern. However, on this issue, it is worth pressing the amendment to a Division.
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If you have spoken to your MP or written to them. You can email the PCS at welfare@pcs.org.uk to let them know how you got on they are very interested and I will be furnishing them with our approaches.
The Government is being warned that its controversial welfare reforms will be fiercely resisted amid claims that ministers are planning to "punish" the poor through tougher rules for jobseekers.
Unions and campaign groups will deliver a strong message of opposition to the Welfare Reform Bill during a lobby of Parliament and call on the Government to rethink its plans.
TUC deputy general secretary Frances O'Grady will deliver a hard-hitting speech at the demonstration, saying it was the "wrong Bill for the wrong time".
She will say: "The Government's ideas would be flawed at the best of times, but with Britain deep in recession, these are emphatically not the best of times.
"A new regime for jobseekers, limiting the time for job search and retraining. Tougher rules for parents, undermining the Government's pledge to halve and then end child poverty. The introduction of sanctions, stigmatising the most vulnerable as villains, not victims, and driving working people into poverty, and the privatisation and break up of a world-class public service, with private contractors profiting from joblessness.
"Why, after the near collapse of free-market capitalism, does the Government press ahead with an agenda of privatisation, marketisation and competition? Why, during the worst economic crisis for generations, is there seemingly one rule for the rich and another one for the rest?
"The contrast could not be starker. Bailouts for the bankers, punishments for the poor - welfare for Wall St, workfare for working people. That is unacceptable and we will resist it."
Unions will press for a change in the Government's welfare plans, including an increase in benefits and more retraining schemes to help the unemployed find jobs.
An opinion poll shows little public confidence in private firms taking over some of the work from jobcentres.
The Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) said its survey of 1,000 adults also revealed four out of five were not confident they could survive on the current £60.50 a week rate of jobseeker's allowance. Click here for details of the Public & Commercial Services Union Public Meeting.